Simon Clayson design is 3 years old today. Thanks to all the people I’ve worked with and have met along the way. I’m spending the day (not because of being 3) in the company of the chaps at Erskine in the big city of Nottingham who have lent me a desk and their wireless network for the day. I did bring some nice biscuits with me to share with all the tea.
I’ll be back to Rissington HQ on Monday.
...by the end of June or not long after. With iPhone/iPod touch apps round the corner, here's a quick list I've been meaning to publish for a while. As well as this sort of thing from Mr Van Damme.
If you are out cycling, running or walking on your own, it’s quite possible you won’t be carrying any ID. Although normally completely oblivious to danger, there is always a small chance of being involved in an accident or even developing medical difficulties. Luckily I don’t have a condition that would mean I would carry some ID (ICE - In Case of Emergency appears to be an acronym in common usage also), so it’s about time I did.
This, I hope, is a quick and cheap way to place my identity and some contact information on my iPhone (which tends to go everywhere) wallpaper. This is so that the people identifying me will be saved a lot of hassle, because at present they wouldn’t have much to go on, but by activating the phone, they will have some basic information.
Below is a Photoshop template where you can add your own details, save as a flat file, and then transfer to your iPhone/iPod touch. I have a iPhoto library that just contains wallpapers that I sync via iTunes. You can then easily set the wallpaper.
If you want something more physical, particularly if you are a runner, then there are some good solutions out there. I particularly like CRAMtags, and there are plenty of options available from Road ID.
If anyone knows what the ideal information is to place on your ID, then please let me know.
Comments on websites are sometimes great and generate some interesting stuff, but for sites like this they can also be a burden. After relentless amounts of comment spam, I’ve decided that I’m turning off comments and this will also be for all future entries. After months of contemplation, it’s not the right sort of site for comments either. If the likes of Textism, Daring Fireball and The Washing Machine Post don’t offer comments, maybe less of us should.
The balance of producing work, and managing work is tricky. I seem to spending more and more time writing emails (and following up emails that have been tagged as spam), and following up bits and bobs in an incoherent manner via different channels. The problem is that it all gets bitty and time is lost actually doing stuff because these things are always there and always “on”. Interestingly, back in the day, the postman came quite early in the morning, you opened the post, done. Way back in the day the postman might come again at lunchtime. This was called a second post.
It’s something we’ve talked about at Rissington HQ, and before we know it, we’ve been on the phone, written a load of emails, made hot drinks, and all of a sudden it’s 11.45am. And produced no work, the stuff that puts bread on the table. I then get replies to stuff in the afternoon and act upon them. Repeat to fade.
So, I need more head down, full-on, distraction free, creative production time and I’m going to get strict (sort of). I’m not going to go down the Carsonified or 37 Signals route to a four day week (although this is on the cards at some point), I’m just going to have some office hours. So I’m only going be available on certain days of the week at certain hours.
Yes, we can turn off the phone, and close email, Skype, Twitter etc but everyone would like answers there and then to their questions and “urgent” requests. I’m as GTDd and Inbox-Zeroed as much as I ever will be.
Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 9am - 11am.
I want to compress my bureaucracy. I want to do what I do best and enjoy it.
Not that I’m jealous or anything, but today, I know one person who has taken delivery of a digital SLR and another who just ordered one. A month back, I bought a new battery, and last week I bought some film for my Minolta X-300. It’s not an exercise in nostalgia, because sometimes it pays to go back to basics, and in this case, treat each shot as a picture in itself rather than endlessly fiddling - because you can.
Hopefully I’ll have some results in a couple of weeks…
The cycling to work has been going well so far, and although not making the trip every day, I feel as though I’ve now got a proper routine. In February, riding to work, without wanting to sound like a martyr, can be a right pain in the backside. The weather is one thing (although of late it’s been really nice for Feb), but it’s the amount of baggage I seem to be carrying around that is noticeable.
I’ve two bags for my trips between Rissington HQ and home. The Rapha Fixed bag holds my MacBook and day to day stuff like glasses, phone and a 85W power supply because I’ve been too lazy/mean to buy a second. The second is the Altura Dryline panniers where I keep my many change of clothes, towel and packed lunch - when I remember to pick it up.
So I’ve two bags, but what really makes sense is to keep all the bike stuff away from these two bags. These apply to all year round really, so, these are what I consider to be the essentials that should go everywhere.
Had this a few years, but thankfully doesn’t get used too often. I swear by Continental Ultra gator skins.
A recent edition. Basically a water bottle with a lid. In here lives a spare tube and a quick lock. Good at the moment, but what will happen when I need 2 bottles?
I’m on my second one of these* as, although clever, the velcro part that straps to the seatpost tended to come clear. It probably wasn’t helped by my saddle position but some hacking with a Stanley through the main plastic shell means it’s probably better than new. This contains tyre levers and…
If you’ve nothing like this, buy one now, and with the chain link extractor. Mine is a few years old now, but pretty much the same as this.
Now the days are drawing out, these are more for being seen rather than seeing. Handy when gloomy and overcast.
Knowing your distance/time/work rate is important for smug value. Mine? Still working happily after 5 years, although a replacement battery is about to set me back £25. This seems rather high. Pondering.
* Topeak clearly not going for the accessibility or SEO route with their site.
I surprised to read in The Guardian that Matt Seaton will not be writing his regular Thursday column for the paper any more. This is a shame as this has been really entertaining stuff for a couple of years. Knowing enough for bike nuts and accessible enough for everyone else, the style always nailed it right. It will be interesting to see if The Guardian keeps a regular cycling column, and I hope they do. The closing column is available here.
I’m not happy about it, but I can handle it. If you submit any comments to the site, they get moderated by me first. I can’t be bothered to clear up after spammers bless them.
There’s always someone out there who ruins it for everyone else.
This week has seen are more dedicated and organised attempt at cycling to the office. I can’t really call it a commute, because essentially, apart from John Oxton, no one is going to tell me I’m late. But what is the definition of a commute anyway?
It’s not the best time of the year to start getting into a habit of doing a proper ride first thing in the morning (dark), and making sure I’ve packed everything (hassle). And there seems to be a lot to pack (I may do one of those Flickr “what’s in my bag” things if you’re good). I’ve really had to think about it all and something will get forgotten. I used to commute a few years back, but I didn’t need to lug a 15” MacBook Pro around with me. I had a G4 Tower sitting under the desk, and the office was half as near.
My new laptop bag is the best thing since sliced bread. But that’s not surprising because it’s made by Rapha. I looked at the Ortlieb stuff but Brian from The Washing Machine Post couldn’t praise the Rapha Fixed. Back Pack enough. And if it’s good enough for Brain, then it’s good enough for the rest of us. While we are on the subject of Rapha, the Winter Hat comes recommended by me - there’s nothing to touch it.
It’s obvious everything won’t go in there so I’ve gone and got myself this Altura Urban Dryline 20 Pannier. It’s the perfect size and gets everything in, (including cake) nicely. The upshot of all this is the bike weighs a bloody tonne and these rolling hills, combined with the wet and blustery wind make for a “challenging” ride to the office. When I get back on a fast road bike, I’ll feel the benefit. I can confirm both bags keep everything dry, which, is a massive help.
There are a handful of sites I recommend to anyone when they ask “where can I get decent advice?” and they are almost certainly in my RSS subscriptions. One of the blogging sites I always recommend is the always excellent Upstart Blogger, from Robert Ellis, he of Futurosity fame. Anyway, apart from generating traffic, Upstart Blogger is offering an iPhone for a lucky linker (me?). Christmas came and went and I’m still using my k610. Hopefully I can WIN one of these puppies instead of dithering around whether to BUY one.
It was Upstart Blogger.
Now that the CDs are finally out of the boxes, it’s time to remember browsing CD spines and covers is far more fun and satisfying than Coverflow etc. iTunes, the iPod and everything has it’s place but you can’t beat the physical interaction with the music. Artwork isn’t just pretty, it adds another dimension to the music, something tactile. If you’re lucky you’ll get sleeve-notes with all manner of useless information.
Take these Kings of Convenience CD’s. I’d never noticed the colour coding motives than span across these releases. It’s a tiny, almost inconsequential addition to the design, but it does add a smile to the mind. Fantastic.
This time last year I was trailing around New Zealand, and it was great. It would be fair to say a lot has happened in the past 12 months, and thinking about this time last year puts a lot in perspective.
As well as moving house and relocating, I’ve moved into office space, met some great people and discovered a whole new area of Blighty. And a stack of other stuff. I’ve been really busy all year, so thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way. You know who you are.
Next year, there will be more of a festive effort with any luck on this site. In the meantime, here’s a picture of Phil Spector again! Where can I get a “Back to Mono” badge? Perhaps I should start making my own.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
The time has come. After two and a half years of working from home, I’m moving out and off to work in a real life office again. Whilst I was still in Nottingham, it was nice to have some talented people around and work with, but since moving to Chippy, it’s all different. But not in a bad way. There’s been plenty written about home versus office working, and personally I think both have their place.
It will hardly be like a commute to Sunshine Desserts as I’ll be commuting some Cotswold hills to go to Upper Rissington each/most day(s). And I’ll not be on my own anymore as I’m sharing the same room as (in alphabetical order) the internets Jon Dennis, Jon Hicks and John Oxton. I think they like me.
There is to be a bit of a cycling commute involved, something else I haven’t done for three years. It should work out fine, and you’ll be able to follow these exploits here and more than likely on Twitter. (Yes, I’m having my words rammed down my throat, I take it all back). It’s a bit more up and down than when I pedalled to Ruddington, and twice as far. Need to get slightly more organised though. And fitter.
The supermarkets are an easy target for excessive packaging, but those massive boxes from yesterday’s post, not from a supermarket, contained: One 2.5” hard drive in one box and a memory module in the other. It gets more bizarre in that both these items are from the same order. Why did hard drive have to be boxed up in addition to it’s already comfy housing? Could that memory be packed in a jiffy?
I really can't believe this sort of thing still goes on. I don't want to name and shame, but it's tempting!
After a number of months, it’s become apparent that I can’t handle running the alpha version of Omnifocus anymore, it’s been really great, the software is stable and the central ideas are working fine. But it’s just getting out of hand, and if they don’t nail down a feature set and look and feel soon, then the app is just going to bloat and get in the way, when the central idea is to GTD (Getting Things Done for those not taking communion) and get out of the way. The context view has just got a new layout, and I’m presented with so many options and views, the best thing to do was just walk away and leave it. At this rate it’s going to end up the bonkers experience that is iGTD with all those priorities and flags and even more options for what biscuits need to be eaten from the tin a week tomorrow.
Not to worry as perhaps the new version of Mail in Leopard will solve all my organisational needs? However, if you can’t change the font from Marker Felt then we can say cheerio to that as well. Yes, I want to change it to Comic Sans. Apple can do some stylish things but they will insist on getting their hands dirty with some complete naffness every so often.
If it’s all about simplicity then perhaps TaskPaper will satisfy my GTD needs? I’m having a look and it’s very promising as it can’t get any simpler. But it may be too simple for me with no syncing or printing (yet).
I’m not finished with Omnifocus yet, but we’re going to take a break for a while. I’ll come back in a few months when iCal syncing and printing works better. But like all the best GTD systems and with change to my workspace on the horizon, I need to design my own system that works for me.
A few quick links to click-through if you've no mad Friday afternoon deadlines...
That is that!
As promised, here’s another test blog that was too good to waste - a YouTube moment from the archives of classic rock (probably recorded off The Chart Show) to enjoy with a cup of tea and a garibaldi. For inspiration, Loveless, played over and over by My Bloody Valentine is ideal. Probably one of the most beautiful guitar records, in the world. Ever. Want proof? Here it is - the kids have already uploaded it to You Tube. This is the shorter single version…
I found this on YouTube recently for use as a test blog on a site I was building but I’ll use it again as it’s so great. I think mainly because of Autumn Almanac, The Kinks are this time of year for me somehow. So here we are, and this was the post:
We’ll also include Days from The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks. Working Class dandies at that. Make Liam and Noel look like Bill and Ben.
Another video tomorrow…
* Different song I know but I like the words and it’s very apt for my new home
I knew the iPhone in blighty would be expensive and it is.
I'll wait until the new one comes out. iPod Touch anyone?
* Surprisingly, I do have some experience here.
I’ve finally made the jump from “organising” my bookmarks in Safari to just dumping the lot online at del.icio.us. The TO READ folder was just becoming a joke. I tried ma.gnolia, it’s great and obviously has more visual appeal than del.icio.us (I always think of the stylings of Craigslist!?), but what did it for me was the Jamie Oliver inspired (true) Pukka, the best way to add bookmarks and tags on a mac to del.icio.us - no contest. There is so much you can do with tags as well, as I’ve mentioned before.
Anyway, if you’re already subscribed to me, and you want the interesting links, then you’ll need to now subscribe to the French Disko feed, the upside of this is that you’ll get more, and more links more often as I don’t have to think about it so much (more). If you want even more just go to my del.ico.us page. Apart from that - carry on.
After dirtying my hands with Ecto and MarsEdit a while back, MarsEdit 2 really does look like a great bit of software that I may use all the time. Expression Engine support via the Metaweblog API and Flickr integration also, we’ll see when we get to 28 days…
In a box not dissimilar to a giant Toblerone, my new office wall map has arrived - it’s a landranger map with Chipping Norton in the middle! It’s going to be like what your local B&Q will have behind the helpdesk, with radius lines drawn all over. Maybe not the lines. Nor is it unlike what estate agents have in their offices.
After spending too much time in Homebase and IKEA, I can confirm that both are obsessed by playing bland popular music from the 80’s over their tinny sound systems. You don’t notice it until you are away from it, but the inertia has seeped into your sub-conscious. I find all this 80’s revivalism wierd, from the Olympic 2012 branding to the Transformers to The Police to Prince. And to the regurgitation of the Wispa.
A bear with a pork pie hat will be next. But at least back in the day, beer glasses had handles.
It’s true, there is just some software that just isn’t and will never be Mac compatible. I know I’ve banged on about it before but Apple switching to Intel is probably what they should have done years ago. Apart from using XP on Parallels as part of the day job, it’s also pretty good for other things. I’ve come to accept that Polar will never support the mac, they make some brilliant products, and not teaming up with Apple (a la Nike), or even supporting the mac is disappointing - and a missed opportunity.
Whilst I can’t quite understand why companies like Polar don’t support the Mac, for small specialist developers, it just isn’t an option. The boom in digital mapping in recent years is really interesting. If you like anything to do with the outdoors and have frequented your local Millets/Blacks in the past few years, as well as the Gore-tex on display, you may have noticed all the GPS units and software.
At the moment I’m not too interested GPS, I’m more interested in making routes up on OS maps. So, with a new area to explore, this all seems like pretty good value for money and in addition to lovely printed maps, the way to go. Of course nothing is Mac compatible, but that shouldn’t really be a problem anymore. I’ve tried all the ones I’ve come across on trial periods, starting with what appears to be the most popular/best marketed, Memory-Map, and I’ve also tried Anquet and Quo. They are all suffer from various states of bad usability to all being just hideous to look at. All bashed with a geeky mouse.
Never mind, at least one company has some sense of dignity, and that is Tracklogs. From the informative website and good service, to general ease of use of the app, this is pretty good stuff. It’s not even that bad to look at. As well as a stack of common features, most importantly the maps are very flexible in which areas you want to buy, whether Landranger or Explorer.
The print options are excellent (helped by Bonjour for Windows), and off I go on my bike, with a rough idea of where I’m going. Of course - this A4 piece of paper can fall out of your jersey pocket though on some of these longish local descents if not careful.
The latest Tracklogs version has the ability to export common .gpx files, so therefore sharing your routes with the whole world on sites like Bikely.
Updates on this site are pretty few and far between, but to be fair, the past month has seen us move south from Nottingham to the “Quintessentially English” surrounds of the Cotswolds. Business is carrying on as normal, but the quiet and scenery is going to take some getting used to. This is a big move for us, the wife and I “don’t know anyone” in and around Chipping Norton, so please introduce yourself.
I’ve also ditched my old main email so it’s time to update that if you need to contact me. Of course I’m not giving that out here, email is unreliable enough without spammers getting their grubby fingers on it.
Now everything is calming down a bit, normal service is slowly returning…
After I clumsily broke a speaker a few weeks back, then I wouldn’t have had to do this, but after a phone call to Richer Sounds spares dept, they decided to send the small part to me free of charge. And then it turns up the next day. The next day thing is great, the free bit even better, but if you look at it from a marketing point of view, this sort of thing is just brilliant.
We’re in the market for a new turntable soon (all the best records seem to reside on vinyl down your local charity shop). Guess where I’ll be purchasing from?
My windows takbar in my XP Parallels installation got stuck at the top of the screen whilst fiddling around with Coherence mode, here is the fix: http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec081504.html
Not a great user experience.
The fantastic Tunng have a new album out in August, which isn’t far away now. Who they and what do they sound like? Well, if you can avoid the horrors of MySpace, most bands do give away tracks on their own website. It’s always worth checking out, and the Tunng site offers three full length downloads for your listening pleasure, including the fantastic ‘Tale From Black’.
If you haven’t already, get yourself down Selectadisc and pick up a copy of their second album ‘Comments of the Inner Chorus’. It’s from the top drawer.
I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at maps in the past few weeks, road maps, OS maps, both on print and via Tracklogs (more on that another time), google maps and Flickr. They looked OK before but they have had a substantial makeover. Clear, bright but with subtle differentiations, they work well at all zoom levels and I really like them. Google maps can look a little bland can’t they?
Obviously, neither are as good as a printed Ordnance Survey Explorer map though.
If you’ve dabbled/been responsible for/cajoled/flirted with small office and home networks over the years then the new Apple Airport Extreme is probably the best thing since 3 points for a win. As an all in one wireless network, it’s also very good at making printers and files available to all.
The best feature is AirPort Disk as it doesn’t limit you to just one USB hard drive. The addition of a small USB 2.0 hub (like this one from Kensington) means you can have as many disks as you like. All flash memory seems to work via a card reader fine, so those stupidly small Compact Flash and SD Cards cards that came with your digital camera can actually be used as a network server. Very handy for sharing images and small files over a network without the angst of connecting to another computer. If you wanted slightly more storage, you could get one of those ludicrously cheap pen drives.
And the software is of course, a doddle.
It’s starting to become common knowledge that Twitter is the most bizarre and probably stupid exercise in time wasting to hit the internets in ages. If normal people did this, it would be people txting, “Just had to brake suddenly on the M4 eastbound whilst nicely doing 90” and that would be illegal, stupid, and dangerous. And a waste of time.
However, I think I’ve seen the light because the much talented Mr Khoi Vinh, a man so productive I doubt he has time to sleep, launched a site for his dog. Complete with Flickr and Twitter feeds, this is, finally, a good use for Twitter. If I were a dog or even better a cat, I’d want a site like this, AND I’d want a Twitter account. If Eric and Maurice see this they’ll want one too. “Went and sat on the fence for 10 mins. Came in again...”
The attitude towards cycling in Copenhagen is a shocking contrast to that of the UK. Proper cycle lanes away from the traffic, the ability to cross the city safely, and the feeling that two wheels are quite the thing to be on. The Danes arguably know a thing or two about design, not everything is perfect, but I like the overall sense of simplicity, clean lines and minimalism.
Stumbling upon Cykelmaragen, a basement boutique specialising in fixed and singlespeed bikes, several parts of Copenhagen come together. You have a cycling culture with a sense of boho chic, simplicity and high moral green credentials that are pretty much a given. I swear some of the frames are reconditioned (the downtube gear bosses tend to point towards the 20th century) with some great paint jobs. I couldn’t confirm this with the staff, but either way, I like it.
It was definitely time for a site spring clean, and now we’re about there. Content is about the same as before, with a few tweaks here and there. I’m only an occasional poster, so I’ve retired the deluxe section and merged it with the main site. The result is a less confusing and cluttered experience.
I was happy with that layout so I’ve taken elements of it and applied them across. The last design has seen me good for two years and for now I’m keeping some elements such as basic colour schemes, and the occasional icon.
The popular collection of shoes have gone to Flickr. My time is better spent elsewhere than trying to make a site out of these, and although I was happy with the way it was going, Flickr just has everything you could ever want. Now all shoe locations are all up-to-date and more will surely be added.
I’ve updated my RSS feeds, the old ones still work, I don’t ask for much, but if you’d like to stay subscribed, please consider changing to one of these:
I made my vCard available a while back on here. Thanks to the power of Microformats, my contact details can just be downloaded and your set up will do the rest - so please download my vCard. I’m also on the Linked In thanks to Mark Philby, whose new two page website, I’ve just completed. Linked In looks great and I will be adding to it in the next few weeks.
Still near the top of my to-do list after many months, is to get my bookmarks more organised. I’m about halfway there at the moment but it’s a never-ending exercise. Whilst starting to utilise ma.gnolia, I did hit upon one solution to the pain of website testing in multiple browsers.
By adding a test site to your ma.gnolia bookmarks, and tagging it with, say, “dev”, I can then see my test sites in one go. Of course, this page, which has the url, http://ma.gnolia.com/people/claypole/tags/dev can then be added to all the browsers I test in to their homepage. So instead of having a blank page open everytime I use IE, I’m straight off to a list of my test sites, which thankfully is always up-to-date thanks to all those clever bookmarklets.
So I’ve now stopped typing so many urls, and then being directed to the MSN search page for one tiny mistake. So why didn’t I think of that before?
So, I’ve signed up to last.fm - can someone tell me, me, with a sizeable music collection, always on the lookout for something different to listen to, should bother with it? I’m intrigued and I think there’s something there for me. Apart from all the usernames and usual stuff - last.fm also requires a separate application on my mac. I’m not sure this is simplicity and I’m not sure I like it.
The last.fm site is nice and fluffy and I like it, but can I really be bothered with it? Any site in the user-generated-content, Hello Kitty style, Web 2.01 mould, however brilliant, does require some time. I feel like I spend a lot of time on Flickr, but some people must spend their entire lives on there tagging this, that and the other. I tried del.icio.us and I felt it just got in the way and required me to do MORE.
It seems like all things in life, the more time you put in to something, the more you get out, and to get more out of sites like last.fm, you have to put the time in.
I’ve been told by Brighton dwelling friend Mr Mason that the content on here is too geeky. Which it is. So, I’m thinking about relaxing all this a bit…
These pages were only meant to contain POSITIVE entries and content. I’ve always thought that my ranting and moaning should be confined to the pub, the bus and just with people I know well. Most people who know me well usually think I’m pretty opinionated and ready to lay into the latest wet musical release from the latest wet singer-songwriter. Maybe this policy should change and I should probably take a leaf out of Mr Oxton’s pages and just be honest without the swearing, which is’nt big or clever, but it is funny of course. I need a tone-of-voice change and I need to be more me.
I’m not a great one for writing up my design conquests as there are loads of others out there who are far more eloquent than myself. Especially all that coding stuff. So. More posts, more often and more random, probably about street furniture. Positive and negative.
So I’ve also been a bit inspired by The Chap. For all the wrong reasons. Absolutely bonkers and can’t agree with hardly any of it. Thanks to Will for the link.
Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 have been released properly this week and I’m on board. This isn’t a review of either of these two new browsers, reviews and opinions can be found elsewhere. If you want to really sit on the fence between the two, how about Auntie’s ”opinion”. I’m on a mac, and Safari suits my everyday needs the best. I use Firefox for designing purposes, so the feature sets of the PC versions of IE7 and Firefox 2 are not for me to really comment on.
However, I’m keen to make my sites work fine on these two new browsers, and so far so good*. I’ve always kept my IE6 hacks to a minimum for my sites only used them in desperation and always put them in their own style sheet with the * hack. This site needed nothing updating, which is great.
Previously, the Deluxe side of my site had it’s styles hidden from Internet Explorer, but this has now changed and I’ve bashed the box model around and changed the padding values to get everything just so. I’m experimenting with Expression Engine’s photo gallery, and this has caused more layout options to be tested. I’m using transparent PNGs in there, and I’m not going to support IE6 just for this, because Andy Clarke told me that we should be encouraging everyone to ditch IE6, and we can design better sites without wasting our time on it. Well, thats how I understood him earlier in the year at @media2006.
All my sites currently in development will be compatible with these updates, and I hope to exploit some more fancy techniques in the coming months.
Parallels. Fantastic!
*Almost… IE7!
Another update to Expression Engine. Supplying absolute URLs to customers is a common practice, and great for promos and ‘hidden pages’. Of course these URLs can go wrong through user error (sausage typing) or particulary when an email client decides to chop addresses. This update to Expression Engine addresses an issue where any mistakes would not display the proper specified 404. It’s not the end of the world but error messages that make sense are very helpful. Now, if a template produces no results, the page can now redirect happily with this code:
The sun is shining brighter! Now I just need to implement it…
It’s been quite a good week with a few interesting things cropping up on the interwebs, as a number of pages have been thrown into my TO READ bookmarks folder. One day, I’m going to go out early in the morning, hook up to a wireless network, and do nothing except organise my bookmarks. I’m too busy Getting Things Done to be worried about it though! Finally, I have put some print work into the Portfolio section.
First up, the ever enlightening 37 Signals with their take on Buzz Words. We’ve been here again and again over the years, there is no ‘solution’, because middle-management love buzz words. On the same themes of simplicity, Ross Howard at boxesandarrows has a lengthy post about Ambient Signifiers. Tokyo, it’s everywhere right now, with everything I know it seems.
More simplicity of design from the cycling trade show season, with loads of new kit around. Although the Campag 2007 kit looks just fantastic (skeleton brakes especially), all the SRAM road stuff looks to have been fine tuned for years. PezCycling News have had a bike built up for them to test the Force gruppo on. I’ve yet to read anything negative about this stuff, and the although it looks better than the Shimano stuff, the levers especially are not quite there for me.
I’m completely undecided about making the leap to a MacIntel, namely which machine. The 24-in iMac is surely the beast for me, but they don’t come cheap, especially with no refurbs yet. As a heavy Imageready user, articles such as this at Subtraction really make me dither even more. If Apple produced a Macbook that was thin and light and I could just chuck in my normal bag, I’d buy one tomorrow. And the current Macbooks? Great, but they do get hot. I’ve obviously been paying to much attention to this guide at iLounge. This Greenpeace page puts Apple in the stocks over it’s green credentials. It makes some good points. Apple is a top popular target for this sort of thing and this site was’nt put together in 5 minutes, AND I’m still scared from when that plane flew into Sizewell.
To finish a couple of nice site designs have come to my attention this week, and I’m liking this: 5thirtyone and this: Elan Snowboards and this: Authentic Jobs.
Here ends the week.
One of my favourite and indispensible bits of freeware on the Mac is a small menubar utility called iSnip. iSnip basically keeps a history of your text copied to the clipboard, which then can be accessed instantly from the menubar. It has’nt been updated for over a year now, which is slightly concerning - even though it works brilliantly with 10.4.7. In addition, you can store sets of clippings for all time, so for example, I’ve a folder of lorem ipsums in varying lengths that can be just pasted instantly into any app. But what I’d really like it to do is the ability to store images as well.
So I did a little bit of digging around Macupdate and revisited iClip, and discovered a newish app called PopCopy. For me, iClip is just to overbearing and lacks the simplicity of iSnip. Clippings are available in a pop-up draw which can be activated from the menubar, it works, but it’s just too many clicks.
PopCopy is more like iSnip, but it seems to lack maturity. You can’t fully evaluate the software without fully buying which I just find a bit odd, and there is a pop-up window acivated on everything you do. The keystroke invoked display of recent clippings in a tab-switcher style is nice, but seems limited to the last three clippings, and my experience with iSnip is to have at least 30.
So for now it looks like iSnip is going to stay in my menubar - which is no bad thing. But what is encouraging is that the link from Macupdate points towards an url containing ’isnip2‘, so is there an upgrade forthcoming? Time will tell, but if not, I’d love to see a company like Panic taking over such a great simple app.
So here it is. The main purpose of getting this site out is to get the shoes online before it goes all out-of-hand. I’ve promised it for so long, the templates have been sitting, completed for ages, so now is the time to lace up and go live!
The rest of this site is a perpetual work in progess. All my external links will live here, and I’ll be passing my eyes and ears over all sorts in the reportage pages. Everyone’s a critic. Sorry, there is no Internet Explorer support for the site design yet, but I make no apologies.
The deluxe title is a nod to the Flying Buritto Brothers album.
Smart Mailboxes are one of those features never used out of the box. I’ve had point 2 set up for a while now - do it and you’ll never look back.
17 Aug 2007 12:11 | Comments
Newcastle and West Ham comparisons. Spot on.
11 Jul 2007 09:06 | Comments
Future publishing seems to be taking up cycling seriously and looks to dominate the bunch for the foreseeable future. Now Cycling News has been caught, may it get a redesign?
4 Jul 2007 19:23 | Comments
This has got to be a classic ‘design by committee’, surely? I’m usually quite sit-on-the-fence about this sort of stuff but they may as well just do some Comic Sans thing. Bizarre and embarrassing.
4 Jun 2007 13:31 | Comments
Yes, very good, but is it art? Damien Hirst goes “Daily Mail Baiting” again.
1 Jun 2007 15:37 | Comments
I think it’s fair to say that pro cycling is going through some sort of exorcism right now. Where is the Landis story going to end?
18 May 2007 15:48 | Comments
Strange maps continues to delight with it’s graphical representations. Today, it’s UK postcodes. Be sure to check out the link also to http://www.motorwaymap.co.uk
16 May 2007 15:09 | Comments
One day, Newcastle Utd will wake up and start treating people with a bit of respect and dignity. And the trophy cabinet remains bare.
10 May 2007 08:54 | Comments
If this article has induced feelings of guilt in one Comic Sans user and they stop using it, then it was worth it.
9 May 2007 14:03 | Comments
Rejoice! Titles on slideshows and other improvements.
8 May 2007 16:09 | Comments
The Currys PR machine (who I think see themselves as some sort of cultural arbiter) rolls on as now, the blank tape gets ditched after they stopped selling VCRs a few years back.
8 May 2007 11:34 | Comments
I asked and I got. Even if the garb isn’t your thing the catalogue is fantastic.
1 May 2007 10:46 | Comments
This came to mind whilst yakking away after FOWD down in that London and I said I’d dig the link out. The execution isn’t quite there for me and the practicalities are a bit iffy, but it’s the idea and I like it.
20 Apr 2007 15:54 | Comments
ImageReady must have gone the way of Freehand. From what I can see, it’s still very much a Macromedia app, and I’ve never quite got it. Maybe now is the time to reassess?
27 Mar 2007 10:18 | Comments
Some famous examples of photo manipulation. For me, whenever the subject comes up or someone, or something needs airbrushing I always, without fail, think of Trotsky.
8 Mar 2007 11:12 | Comments
It’s not just the road lobby who can vent their anger at Blair. If you have a mac and pay your tellybox fee, make you’re voice “heard” at Downing St. Blair should sort it out, etc.
22 Feb 2007 07:01 | Comments
Charlie Brooker with yet more spot on observations.
6 Feb 2007 09:28 | Comments
Half of these records in the Top 50 should be in the bottom list… Glad I didn’t listen to any of it.
30 Jan 2007 11:27 | Comments
Another little jaunt down from the provinces beckons.
29 Jan 2007 20:27 | Comments
Tic Tacs, disgusting and terrible wasteful packaging. The most friendly web stats package around just got better.
29 Jan 2007 19:02 | Comments
Petition to get bikes allowed on trains. Via Singletrack.
19 Jan 2007 11:46 | Comments
Staff morale at Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericcsson and the rest must have hit an all time low today. The iPhone is going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread if it works and ships as described. They’ve produced some fantastic stuff over the years but this is something else.
10 Jan 2007 06:59 | Comments
Always entertaining whether right or wrong, a national institution.
9 Jan 2007 11:15 | Comments
A few pics charting some prototype Shimano XTR units for their top-end bike gruppo. The design process is pretty much the same as modern day web design, test, tweak, test, kick, test…
10 Nov 2006 17:36 | Comments
This upgrade looks pretty good. I used v1 all the time but it just became buggy. Now I’ve discovered Textmate. Will I go back?
7 Nov 2006 08:58 | Comments
So Isobel Campbell has taken to covering songs from The Wicker Man, but it’s not The Maypole Song. Want to check out more at isobelcampbell.com? Nah, there is a new album yet Sony/V2 have’nt a website.
26 Oct 2006 16:30 | Comments
Not a great Manics fan but this is a good read.
25 Oct 2006 21:18 | Comments
Just what goes on at the FA? Every day the whole circus just becomes more of a freak show.
12 Oct 2006 15:48 | Comments
All very well on this scale, but can a small design firm go green affordably?
4 Oct 2006 09:27 | Comments
Not before time, all the dancing has always looked far too contrived and uncomfortable. I’m surprised the globe has’nt made a return, but I think this would be too political. Huge price tag for these idents to be revealed amid much predictable snorting about license payers money in the traditional press on 27th Sep…
26 Sep 2006 12:13 | Comments
This has been a trend for a while now, but iTunes 7 has this in abundance.
26 Sep 2006 10:38 | Comments
Party political re-branding at this level only happens once in a generation, so I think this is quite interesting. Mr Cameron of course has no green policies as yet, such as raising the price of petrol (just imagine that!), so this is proof that image is everything. I think Mr Cameron is due another appearance on Monkey Donkey Question Time to explain this new logo! Saving that, we can refer to reader comments made on the Daily Mail site. Now I’m angry.
15 Sep 2006 10:34
This looks absolutely fantastic, and the clip is just brilliant. I can’t find the iPod with phone functions built in though. Am I missing something?
13 Sep 2006 18:55 | Comments
Technically complicated as they look, this article breaks down recent new branding such as UPS.
8 Sep 2006 08:08 | Comments
There is stacks of new stuff here to implement, and it appears that some of my category tag dreams have indeed come true.
8 Sep 2006 08:03 | Comments
It might be retro, but the paint jobs will be fantastic. Sadly, I can’t justify the price tag, and shall be sticking to my Peugeot 753 for my late 80s fix.
14 Aug 2006 09:03 | Comments
Another overview of running ‘the other OS’ on an Intel Mac. I just need an Intel Mac. VPC is just too slow for everyday testing, even on my iMac.
3 Aug 2006 10:46 | Comments
Something is good is obviously happening at the Iconfactory judging by this fantastic animation.
24 Jul 2006 17:14 | Comments
One of the best write-ups on the use of Comic Sans I’ve read.
21 Jul 2006 07:31 | Comments
I love this kind of thriftiness! Although there are fairly low-cost portable items on the market, I’m sure this works fine.
19 Jul 2006 09:35 | Comments
This is a really nice site that is a great archive of cassette design. In a negative way the site calls itself nostalgia, it’s better than that. Tapes have had their day and that is probably a good thing.
12 Jul 2006 08:01 | Comments
Poor old white van man gets some more bad press. No mention of 4x4 drivers here, who in my opinion (completely unscientifically and with no evidence) provide the biggest challenge to cyclists in urban areas.
6 Jul 2006 11:00 | Comments
Nice piece on Apple Pro about Graham Watson, the great cycling photographer.
4 Jul 2006 18:12 | Comments
The ever reliable James Richardson with a podcast worth listening to. With the BBC in 98 as a correspondant, but not now. But the Beeb have possibly the greatest pundit of them all, ever. Martin O’Neill.
14 Jun 2006 07:21
It’s not a wall-chart for your fridge but it’s pretty good for a quick scan if you use iCal.
15 May 2006 16:49 | Comments
Garmin have announced they are to suppport the mac. Hopefully this will start a trend. Via
14 Jan 2006 18:00
Inspirational stuff, the hurricane stuff is just padding mind you. There’s a lesson about creativity and hunches in here somewhere. And hangovers.
27 Oct 2005 18:01 | Comments
One of my all-time favourite sites has been relaunched I’ve just found out.
26 Sep 2005 13:37 | Comments
The online edition of NME has redesigned with web standards in mind. Whatever next, RSS feeds?
14 Sep 2005 08:47
This looks promising, after Extensis made Suitcase more buggy than Symantec ever knew how. And FREE is FREE. Via.”
14 Sep 2005 08:12
Only one in seven? Nearly every cordless is faulty the moment it goes to manufacturing. A joke industry laughing at the consumer with it’s appalling designs.
4 Aug 2005 14:14
A present from Auntie ‘worth the license fee alone’. Now for play again options?
16 Jul 2005 10:50
This FREE handy little application for Mac users has been updated at last. If you want to update some icons, but not delete the whole lot, this is the puppy!
4 Jul 2005 18:14
Number 9, Number 9, Number 9, Number 9, Number 9, Number 9, Number 9.
2 Jul 2005 17:07
I’m not usually one for changing this sort of thing, but I had to change the hideous default icons in the MacOS X 10.4 Mail application back to the 10.3 version.
1 Jul 2005 14:25
