Over the last few months I’ve been working on a very exciting project. Recently we have started to quietly test it with a few selected users (150 to be exact) and now we feel it is time to take it to the next level.
Weewar.com is an online multi player strategy game. As a gamer I am inclined to say it is very successful already as I have enjoyed many great Weewar sessions to date. But I do not expect you to take my word for it - In fact I would hope you try it for yourself. We are now giving away beta accounts on a first come first serve basis. Once you receive your invite you can start games and easily invite others to play against you.
You can play on Weewar.com with any modern browser. There are no plugins required and load times are minimal (thanks to ajax). This also means that you can close your browser window at any time without loosing anything. Quite handy if you want to test it during work ;).
I am very excited to finally make this announcement. I care deeply about gaming and Weewar.com is the perfect union of this passion and my profession as a designer. I hope you will feel some of this when you play it yourself.
Comments for Online gaming at Weewar.com
Just got a beta invite.. stoked to try it out. Mind inviting me to your next game? WW user name is ‘stirman’.
Comment by Stirman on 2007 03 07
and good posting at blog.weewar.com :)
Comment by Gloom on 2007 03 08
Can I be invited?
Comment by Ecos on 2007 03 15
The game is similar to Dots, but more complicated. You would enjoy it!
Comment by Human on 2007 03 19
I’ve been playing for about a week now. There are some minor technical and gameplay issues that need to be ironed out, but it’s already loads of fun. I have four games going at the moment.
Comment by Joel Odom on 2007 03 28
Brilliant Carly Comando is now available from iTunes
Date: 2007 01 20
Tags: music iTunes classic
Carly Comando’s brilliant “Everyday” single is finally available for purchase. The track was used by Noah K in his video showing self-portraits taken every day for the past 6 years. You can download this song (link opens in iTunes) from iTunes now.
Noah K seems to also have achieved some well deserved internet celebrity status with the success of his project and can be seen with other celebrities (some of which are maybe a bit less deserving of their status) in this flickr set. Anyway - go get the track. It is good. And watch the mesmerizing video if you have not seen it yet.
Comments for Brilliant Carly Comando is now available from iTunes
Carly spells her name with one “m”....a truely brilliant musician! Love her stuff...I want to hear more...aj
Comment by aj on 2007 02 11
fixed the spelling - thanks for the tip. I’d like to hear some more, too!
Blogging overload! I need to be careful to not open or accept any more publishing channels as I am having enough trouble maintaining the ones I have already. There is 4(!) now, and all 4 are not getting the attention they deserve. Duplicating content can of course not be the answer, but I still would like to point you to some thoughts on search vs subscription I have just added to the Soda Journal.
More on the other “channels” I got myself into soon…
Comments for Is subscription the next search?
And how you do it at one time?
Comment by Mike on 2007 02 09
there is tiny.. and then there is tiny
Date: 2006 12 19
Tags: space, knowledge, science, video, entertainment
There are some stars out there that dwarf our good old sun - but how much so is astonishing. Be awed you tiny people. (via kunal anad)
Comments for there is tiny.. and then there is tiny
i just returned from vacation with a 13 hour flight from Burma (Myanmar). And you know what? Our earth is fucking huge! This video must definitly be wrong!!;)
Comment by thomas hertz on 2007 01 17
A few seconds into the movie the earth is already smaller then a single pixel. 13 hours to get round a single pixel?
Comment by alex on 2007 01 19
/$(§)§=)"#*’*§$*§$#§’’’§**§$*
Comment by thomas hertz on 2007 01 19
to the men and women who design
Date: 2006 10 30
Tags: style,design,america,entertainment,video
I am not American.. but as a “man who designs” I feel genuinly appreciated after watching this. (via happy mundane)
hcard and intimacy
Date: 2006 10 27
Tags: personal,plasticshore,work
During a recent chat with a friend of mine who is currently redoing his site (watch the friends section here on plasticshore for updates on that) we got to talk about how weblogs seem to have lost some of the intimacy they used to have. Now that is not necessarily a general trend but it is certainly true for mine.
I was never quite sure what plasticshore really is to me. Should I use it as a professional outlet or as personal space to keep in touch with friends who might have little interest in what I do for a living? This lack of focus makes it difficult for people - both friends and others - to develop a lasting relationship with this site. A clear indicator for this difficulty is the huge gab between the raw visitor numbers and the much smaller number of subscribers plasticshore has.
However I don’t think I can really solve this. I am not in for money nor to attract clients - in fact I had to turn down offers in both respects in the past. But I am a designer and it (hopefully) shows, and I have friends I want to share pictures of a night out with. I am hugely interested in current web technology and I also like to read some nice words after telling the world that my car has been set on fire.
So brace yourself for more of the same - geeky posts, design news, work, birthday pictures, ... - all in one big random mess. Because I am not going to change this and I wouldn’t know how even if I wanted too.
But I feel that I need to bring back some of that “intimacy” that got somewhat lost along the way. First step: A picture. Find it to the right on plasticshore and see for the first time in ages who is actually talking here.
And to stress that this is still one geeky enterprise, I have also added a full hcard. Using the right tools there is a whole lot more information about me on this site now - only a sliver of which is visible to the naked eye.
Speak to you soon.
I am the 52,706,770 richest person on earth and did not even know it
Date: 2006 10 11
Tags: fun,elsewhere,infosthetics
I’m loaded. It’s official. I’m the 52,706,770 richest person on earth!
There you have it. I am officially up there. Right with the other super rich. Granted it is not the top ten or hundred or thousend even, but still… It is the top 0.87%. That sounds great but it is actually rather scary. Go check it out and put your weight into perspective.
Comments for I am the 52,706,770 richest person on earth and did not even know it
4xx,xxx,xxx ___ i need to DO SOMETHING i guess.
Comment by flaccus on 2006 10 19
I don’t wanna see the result ;)
Ow, by the way. Nice site ;)
Comment by Dennys Hess on 2006 10 20
I’ve got moo’ed
Date: 2006 10 06
Tags: moo,flickr,photos
I have just received my moo pack in the mail. 100 cards featuring a selection of my photos hosted with flickr on the front and same custom info on the back. Delivered in a nice sturdy box and with very decent printing quality, $20 including world wide shipping (in less then the advertised 10 days even) is a very sweet deal for these indeed. So go and get yourself moo’ed, too. It’s easily worth it.
And those guys over at moo deserve to get rich. Great idea, excellent execution! Less is more - as usual.
No more RSS for diggnation and co?
Date: 2006 09 28
Tags: podcasting,rss,web 2.0,diggnation
Revision3 relaunches and it looks fab. But were has the RSS feed gone? I know it is still there but I can not find a link to it anywhere on the all new Revision3 site? Not for diggnation and not for any of the other shows.
Am I missing something or is it really not there? I understand that revision 3 is all about being channel independent. Good content wherever and whenever you want it. But right now it seems to be only available via the browser right on the site - at least if you do not already know the feed url.
Is this an oversight or deliberate choice emphasizing the notion of being a fresh tv like network instead of a podcast?
[Update: Delayed by a few days the feeds have finally arrived. And they are all new and improved, too. Check out Diggnation for example]
The feed it back up now. looks like they took it down for some time while they where putting the new site up
Comment by Graham on 2006 09 28
I know that the feed is there - but it is not linked anywhere from the new site. So if you look at diggnation.com or revision3.com how are you supposed to find out about it?
Comment by alex on 2006 09 28
The site is still being worked on. I don’t see a lot of things that were on the old site - the forums, donation pages etc. I doubt they are getting rid of these. They probably just haven’t had the time to complete them yet.
Comment by Leesyy on 2006 09 29
One of the best things the ever came out of the web is RSS feeds. love them hope we get them back real soon.
Comment by Mr. Poster on 2006 09 29
i always look at the source and find the rss feed ... many sites don’t quickly offer a link to the RSS feed, but source will always show it.
HTH
Sam
Comment by Sam on 2006 09 29
Yes, but many people can’t be bothered with the source code. I, for example, would strongly prefer a “subscribe now” button - preferably for iTunes. Yes, yes, I use iTunes. When the site first launched, I looked for that button and was likewise disappointed that I couldn’t find it - but as they say, the site is still being worked on.
Comment by Scott on 2006 09 29
I agree 100% with you on that scott.
Comment by Mr. Poster on 2006 09 29
Plus it’s not in the source either....
Comment by Mike on 2006 09 29
I was researching pod casts today and was sent there by a co worker. We were both baffled as to why there was no easy way to subscribe any longer.
Comment by Tony on 2006 09 29
If you use iTunes just search for Revision3 at iTS and boom… all the Revision3 Feeds are there…
Thebroken is the best one there…
Comment by Rafael Gaspar on 2006 09 29
Rafael > But, the rev3 files on iTunes can’t be put on ipod. That is why every format should have its own rss feed.
Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years
Date: 2006 09 07
Tags: video,inspiration,youtube
You tube says this video has been watched more then 1.3 million times so chances are that you have seen it already. I had not and was captivated when i found it on blog.co.uk, where it was tagged with a single tag: Remarkable. I agree.
Comments for Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years
Awesome
Comment by Pathic on 2006 09 17
This man must build a monument for himself! He’s a hero. I wouldn’t carry out it for 6 years
Who would have thought this day would come. I now own a microsoft xBox 360. And I do like it very much. Not so much for the available games but for the incredible clever system xbox live is… I do not have much time right now (there is a game waiting for me) but if you are on live yourself feel free to find me - my gamertag should appear right with this post.
Comments for still more gaming
Congratulations. I also appreciate my XBox 360 and spend far to many hours gaming ;) If you wanna battle me, my gamertag is “Woifgang”.
Comment by Wolfgang Bartelme on 2006 09 03
I will most certainly do. btw Congrats on the latest iteration of your site. It’s looking great (as usual).
Comment by alex on 2006 09 04
all new soda.co.uk
Date: 2006 08 21
Tags: soda,work,design
When I joined soda in 2004 one of the first things on my to-do list was the redesign of soda’s well known and respected website. A daunting task that got pushed down time and time again by the many seemingly more urgent (or critical or less difficult ...) projects soda keeps getting in. But now - more then two years later - I can finally take it off the list. soda.co.uk has launched with not only a very different look and feel but also with a completely new concept.
Meet the team, see what we are doing (right when we are doing it), catch up with previous and current projects and start talking to us. We are still filling in the gaps the previous site has left us with and we have yet to find the appropriate language for this new beast, but all that will come with practice. I am left with one more channel to write in, but one I share with the awesome folks at soda.
Nice looking tool that simply reveals publicly available data about flickr users - e.g. me.
nice feel good feedback
Date: 2006 07 11
Tags: work,swatchify,design
Remember swatchify.com? It is still out there. Very much alive and kicking. And while we are hard pressed to afford the time to make some much desired improvements (oh yeah. .. we do have good things lined up) people are on there every day. It is feedback like the following that makes my day:
“It’d be great to be able to save swatchify palettes with an inverted color scheme (black text + colors on a white background).
I also think that swatchify is an entirely useful bit of work and for that I thanks you. You are a blessing to teh intarwebs.”
Put into the inbox by Christian. Thanks a lot!
Please do let us know what you make of it and how you are using it. That way we can ensure to make the correct changes - in the right order.
Comments for nice feel good feedback
Well, I don’t know what’ there with feedback, but the site is awful. I can’t understand for what it. You even can’t save pallette. But you can show your friends what you can do. Awesome!
Comment by Flax on 2006 07 12
http://www.colourlove.com and make many more are so similar fun, because one does not only stop own colors and pallets, but also those to the other one to evaluate and commentate can.
A great flickr set documenting a chance encounter with a charming free one man school. Good image descriptions, too.
Comments for Free tech school in a Bronx basement
Aah, it reminds me my time in school, when I stayed for long in computer class
Comment by Blimp on 2006 07 06
irrepressible.info is big (really big)
Date: 2006 05 30
Tags: irrepressible.info,soda,work,design,digg,del.icio.us,alexa,technorati,slashdot,amnesty international
irrepressible.info is doing amazingly well. Since the launch just 2 days ago 14448 people have signed the pledge surpassing even our highest ambitions. It has been featured on digg, slashdot and appeared on del.icio.us’ most popular. According to Alexa it is currently ranked among the 5000 most popular websites - not bad given that it took only 2 days to get there. Check out Technorati to see some responses from the blogsphere.
Our system held up really well too, not even flinching during this traffic onslaught (still ongoing - the counter has gone up to 14553 since I have started writing this). I will provide some more detailed statistics soon. This is just all good :)
Comments for irrepressible.info is big (really big)
And it not a record!!!! I hear the first time about such fast development of a site!
Comment by Format on 2006 05 31
I’ve written a WordPress plugin to easily display the Irrepressible.info fragment on a blog.
If you’d like to find out more, you can take a look at the project page.
e
Comment by e on 2006 07 22
>>e. Thanks for making irrepressible.info more accessible to even more people. You might want to also mention your plugin on the soda site for maximum exposure.
We are aiming to roll out more features in the near future to actively support third party developers like yourself. Thanks again!
Comment by alex on 2006 07 22
Thanks for the tip, Alex.
e
Comment by e on 2006 07 24
irrepressible.info goes live
Date: 2006 05 27
Tags: irrepressible.info,soda,work,design,amnesty international
We have just launched irrepressible.info. irrepressible.info is a campaign by Amnesty International UK to raise awareness of internet censorship and the role of big businesses in helping repressive governments to control the flow of information to their people.
Our idea is to allow people to actively participate and take action against online repression by republishing and spreading content that is being repressed in some form. And so everybody can put a badge like the one you can see below online - it will show different excerpts from censored sites around the world and link back to irrepressible.info where you can learn more about the site in question and the campaign itself.
You are invited to sign the pledge and get your own badge to show that online or offline the human voice and human rights are impossible to repress.
The campaign and the site will be launched by the Observer tomorrow and I will keep you posted about it too. Hopefully you will soon hear more about irrepressible.info from many sides.
I am really pleased and proud to be involved in this project. It’s been a good week for soda.
Yesterday the B.TWEEN 06 festival started in Bradford, UK. Featuring an Installation by Lei Yang and soda (see previous entry) we have now also launched b.tween2cultures.net. There are a few features missing still (like in depth linking to flickr) but it is working nicely and people have started to create some very interesting dialogues. And the photo pool the system relies on is still growing, counting 1763 photos at the time of writing to be exact. Find out more about this and how to get involved at b.tween2cultures.net. I will see to share some pictures of the actual exhibition soon.
As you might know by now I have recently joined the ranks of happy flickr users. And I have bought into that great community wholeheartedly since then. And so it is a great pleasure for me to now be able to work on a project that builds on that very community.
Soda (that’s us) and Chinese media artist Yang Lei are working on a commission for the b.TWEEN 06 festival in Bradford, UK. b.tween2cultures.net will try to create a visual dialog between China and the UK playing on the differing visual semantic interpretation by people from contrasting cultural backgrounds.
We will be using flickr images tagged with either btweenchina or btweenuk to form these visual dialogues. They will then be shown during the event on the BBC’s 6m outdoor screen in Bradford, UK and also on an indoor multi display installation at the NMPFT.
You will be able to create and review dialougues on a dedicated page at b.tween2cultures.net. There you can also find some more information and some directions on how to get involved. And we also have a dedicated flickr group of course: btween2cultures.
Currently there are way more people contributing from China - something we ought to change. So go ahead and add your images from Britain (and China too of course) by using the two dedicated tags btweenchina or btweenuk on your images at flickr. This is a good reason to join too if you are not already using it.
See you there.
Comments for A visual dialog between China and the UK
Hi Korni,
the site is still under development but it won’t be long now. Really!
Thanks to everybody who has contributed so far! Our call for action has resulted in 1100 images from China and 530 from the UK so far. Keep them coming please and I’ll update you soon.
Comment by alex on 2006 05 23
I am working on a similar project in preparation for graduate studies. I am researching the interpretation of visual linguistics from a global perspective… please check out my current blog… it is a photographic conversation between Canada and Hong Kong.
I would love to be involved with the project in the UK- or something like it.
http://photochat.blogspot.com/
Comment by Lara on 2006 05 26
I am studying cos I want to start implement web in another dimension.
I guess very soon, I’ll publish some stuffs sa.
Weird is the way of the Engineer. Hitachi does hardware but has some lessons (in dancing?) to teach.
new flickr interface launched today
Date: 2006 05 16
Tags: flickr,web 2.0,safari
Being a fairly recent flickr convert gone fan boy I am pretty excited about today’s update to the flickr site. It all seems to make a lot of sense on first view and some further testing over the next few days will tell how well it holds up. But why did they need to release it without full support for safari? The organizer refuses to cooperate now. This was working fine on safari before and I do not see how it can be good to take well working and much used and appreciated features away when wanting to move forward?! Strange thinking. But then they are Yahoo now, and Yahoo also just released a No-Safari-Preview of their new site today.
[UPDATE: well in a mere hours the no safari message has disappeared and is replaced by an all new set of organizational tools - great stuff!]
sodaplay 2.0 prototype launched
Date: 2006 04 28
Tags: sodaplay,soda,work,design
All of soda has been working very hard on the next iteration of sodaplay.com and I am personally very happy to be able to show you the first public evidence of all our efforts: Today we have lifted the curtain from the first prototype. You can clearly see where it is headed and also have some fun with the applications and models that are there already (I just say magnetism). I do think this is going to be huge once we launch proper later this year and I can’t wait. For now you can at least see some and read more about much of the goodness to come. Just go there and explore.
As you might have guessed already, I am quite proud of this piece work, which makes this a very good posting to begin a long bank holiday weekend in Paris (that is where I will have to have the champaign). See you all on the other side.
offensive icons
Date: 2006 03 27
Plasticshore visitors have created a lot of icons using my little icon creator. More then 1300 in fact. And while most of these exhibit a great deal of creativity I do get a fair share of silly profanity too of course. Some of it has been so offensive that I felt obliged to remove it for the sake of my other users (but for the most part I am fairly easy about it).
But this time someone going by “danims” did a really great job: (Mis-)Using the particular design of this version of plasticshore he/she expanded the scope of the icon editor to more than the usual 9x9 pixels and managed to spell out a message to my users. Now the message is not the best choice maybe, but the idea to exploit this feature in this way is really rather clever. So I am not going to delete it but rather pay my respect. Well done danims.
Comments for offensive icons
ty. i will choose a better message for my next posts.
Comment by danims on 2006 03 28
Hey dude, nice simple icon maker. Good to see you keeping it raw. Any chance we can have a tool to browse all the icons people have created, not just view the last dozen or so?
Cheers.
Comment by icon on 2006 04 07
Thanks “icon”. I do see how a browser would be really nice. At time this functionality was available and I am sure I’ll bring it back eventually. All icons are indeed saved permanently already and there are now some 1400+. One way to explore them randomly is a shockwave experiment I did a long time ago: http://www.plasticshore.com/projects/explorationsV1/icons/index.php
Keep it coming!
ps> urls for individual icons are permanent, even if they disappear from the list of the last 20
I am happy as Harry to have Swatchify.com as a pet project. John and I keep playing with it and you can really watch it grow. We have done a lot of smallish user interface improvements - most of which are nearly imperceptible (e.g. the much refined cross highlighting between the palette of swatches and the color list).
It is these little changes that enhance the overall experience a great deal. But it is a big one I would like to point out today: You can now rearrange swatches by “drag and drop”.
When I announced Swatchify.com a little more than a week ago I shared the plasticshore.com palette with you. Those colors came in a fairly random order and I wanted to change that ever since. As of today I can do just that. And it is super easy too. Have a look at the same palette again, all rearranged to my liking (btw: this is palette number 123).
You have some fun now dragging and dropping those swatches. We’ll keep playing too.
Vacation is coming up. Two actually. And they have nothing to do with work.
First one starts on April 6th. Verena, Ika and I will be spending some nice 5 days in Nice, France, where we will hopefully find a proper spring (the UK’s version seems to be dead set to skip this year altogether).
And then just a few weeks later I am going to France again. This time is will be me and the boys (Markus, Ingo and Bert) spending an extended weekend in Paris.
I am delighted to introduce swatchify.com, here showing the color scheme of plasticshore. It can actually show you any palette of colors, like - let’s say - google’s. Because that is what John and I made Swatchify for. To create and share colors without any fuss.
You don’t need to login or register. You don’t even have to hand over any email addresses to share palettes with others. Simply put in the colors you want and generate a permanent url for your palette. Share this url with anybody or just use it for yourself to find the palette again. If somebody else wants to modify your palette - let them! When they are done they simply generate a new url for their version and off they go. Yours will still be there. Plus: You can always roll back trough the versions as each palette tells you which previous palette is was built on.
We have loads of ideas how to make this even better, many of which we’ll introduce soon. But first we’d like to see some of your palettes. Let us know what you think.
Comments for Swatchify.com is here
Great job guys. I was able to use this in a real world setting within minutes… I am currently working on a site that uses a ton of colors and shades dynamically throughout the site. Now the rest of my team needs those colors for use creating assets and such… I quickly put them all in a swatchify palette and sent them all a link for quick reference and copy/pasting. rock on.
.Aaron
Comment by Aaron on 2006 03 15
How can one navigate through the collection of swatches.
The only way I found the ability to navigate through the different swatchces was by manually changing the URL
Comment by John on 2006 03 15
Hi Aaron - that is a great example. You are doing exactly what we had in mind when we created swatchify! Let us know how it goes
Hi John - you are absolutely right. There is currently no way to navigate between palettes that are not related (build from each other). But that is because swatchify is intended for sharing among peers at this point. However there is a long list of features we would like to add - of which several touch on the social aspects. Stay tuned.
If I was better at doing electronics (I am good at buying them only) and if I was using that dusty push bike in my bed room more often, and ... anyway, then I would have to get down and dirty and make myself one of these. I am not sure though if these will keep harm away or will get you killed by enthralled car drivers right away.
One can still count the number of useful widgets for apple’s dashboard on one hand (3 fingers are enough even). So it is very exciting if a new one comes along: The daily Grind looks lovely and works great. Use it to keep track of any number of things you do and quickly copy the times elsewhere. No more.. no less. Simply good.
(via tuaw )
I have just encountered another site that is all about photo sharing. Only with slide.com it is not so much about you uploading your own images (you can do that too) but about (re-)using imagery hosted anywhere that offers an RSS feed. So it is easy to quickly get your photos from e.g. flickr in there or - as in my case - all the photos hosted right here on plasticshore. They also offer a neat little desktop client to then watch all the slide shows you are subscribed too. You can also use the application to quickly publish a photo to any number off public or private slideshows you can host with them. Each show gets its own permanent url and feed of course.
You can also add photos by email or with a very straight forward bookmarklet right from your browser. Especially the bookmarklet is a great way to collect individual images directly from the web.
There is nothing spectacular happening here but it does tie together some nice technologies to give you yet another way to share and find pictures on the web. And it strikes me as a good way to get all the photos you care for into one convenient spot.
The only thing that seems missing is a way to combine all the shows you are subscribed to into one single feed to then use e.g. in iPhoto or anywhere really.
A neat little diagram mapping out a designer’s career. I do not know if it is really fitting for most but I can see it work for me (after adjusting it a bit). One must notice that (this being a pyramid and all) it gets rather thin towards the top. Not that much room up there.
If Microsoft were to re-package an Apple ipod ... (I always knew something was wrong about that box)
my new G(oogle)eocities home page
Date: 2006 02 23
Tags: google,work
Your web wiz has done it again! He has snatched up a google pages account just before big G closed the doors on the newest Betaminator again. But that is not his only feast - he went a step further and created a shiny new home page - A matter of clicks only for him of course.
But will he be able to tend to a second homepage? And will plasticshore stay the same? Will men survive? Tune in next week ... for “Return of the Geocities!”
Comments for my new G(oogle)eocities home page
Now this is worrying and I wonder what google can/might do about it? I would think, that it should be easy for them to filter out a mass of similar spam emails directed at gmail users?
Still, I am glad I am using my gmail account for - well - nothing really (which makes the amount of spam it attracts already even more shocking?!).
Comment by alex on 2006 02 26
It’s not too late mate. You can simply hit the unpublish button in your admin section and your Google Page is gone forever.
There is no science to creating a favicon (The little icon appearing next to the url in the browser’s location bar) anyway, but this favIcon tool makes it a piece of cake. Please use responsibly! (via swissmiss)
A sad story about a lost camera and how it is found by a “friendly” finder who turns out being not so friendly after all. Very aggravating and very sad.
Comments for bad luck, good luck, bad luck
Perhaps the new website version will help wash away the shallowness of your “friendly” finder.
Comment by Andy on 2006 02 21
ajax is not flash
Date: 2006 02 17
Tags: ajax,design,comment,ajaxian
Another pretty Flash site to share with you - only that this one it is not done with Flash but with ajax. christofwagner.com is built using the incredibly useful script.aculo.us JavaScript library.
The site looks great and the work shown is brilliant. But the questions is: Why is it not simply done with Flash? It certainly manages to keep most of Flash’s disadvantages, like not having absolute URLs for the individual section/pages. I would think, that a portfolio, where you can not link to a specific piece, is loosing a lot of it’s potential usage?
And since you can’t deep link the navigation becomes key (actually it always is). But again: Here the navigation isn’t suitable for anything but cumbersome clicking through from beginning to end. Single slide by single slide by single ... another thing we find ever so often in flash based sites.
Maybe it does not matter. The site looks good and it is getting a lot of attention for demonstrating some great possibilities. One thing it certainly demonstrated to me is, that standard-compliance, cutting edge technology and pretty visuals do not make a good design. Shall we file this under “yet another hard to use flash site” then?
Btw: The photographs are fantastic - I like that one taken in venice the best. Sorry, but I can not link to it directly. I am afraid, you’ll have to click your way through and find it yourself.
With these little glowing buggers all over the internet we might even have a chance to see some in the wild. Check out the video on the graffiti research lab and some more images on flicker. (via generator x and others)
Comments for Do it yourself LED Graffiti: Throwies
this is a boring sight learn the true meaning of graffiti and get the consept
.. or “do you want pommes frittes with that”. A charming blog presenting the other side’s view on something we all do all the time: going to be served some food. The waiter has the word here. And an entertaining word that is.
Jeroen Wijering has created an extra nice news map, perfect for an idle moment or an idle screen. Beautiful design and some fitting functionality to boot. And there is more of the kind on his site - which he runs very openly. I like it very much and so did digg.com. (via infosthetics.com)
ps: With this post I have also sneaked in a new look for plasticshore. Yep, no more version four. Five it is. But if this site wasn’t so very personal and non-commercial I should really call it a public beta or even preview version as I have yet to test it in IE :) You tell me how well it fares. Proper introductions will be made once all is tested and approved.
Using data from alexa, alexadex lets you play a kind of stock market game on web sites. You get a virtual $10 000 to begin with. Sounds like fun and the interface is very straight forward. So once again you can waste a lot of time checking your portfolio, but this time, you won’t lose all your dough when the bubble 2.0 bursts. Go get rich.
Comments for alexadex
There is another one that looks like alexadex, it’s called Wikinancial.com, but this one is using a real stock market price.
Video on the web. Nice flickr like tool to share videos online. All the necessary goodies (tags, etc.. ) are there. Very nice experience > Big time waster :)
Comments for you tube
Yeah I like You Tube… Also try out http://www.vMix.com Loads of fun viral videos. Another great time consumer!
Comment by VHSvsBETA on 2006 01 17
it rocks
Comment by kristy on 2006 07 19
it is not opening properly. please help out.
Comment by almolbhore on 2006 07 27
the page is being blocked by something.
Comment by almolbhore on 2006 07 27
YouTube seems to be a tad slow today but is otherwise working fine. Maybe there is a problem on your end almolbhore?
Comment by alex on 2006 07 27
i love youtube it is awsome
Comment by Rhiannon on 2006 08 23
yeah i like youy tube
Comment by spicy_tazle on 2007 01 27
heyhey i woz wantin t mke a vid 4 bebo how can i do diz ???xx
Comment by charlene on 2007 01 30
here is a video of my toy that I made 17-years ago.
Comment by anothervideo on 2007 02 21
Greatest blonde joke ever
Date: 2005 12 14
Tags: fun,silly
I am normally not linking to this kind of thing, but this is simply the best blonde joke I have ever read. Period.
Comments for Greatest blonde joke ever
o m g this web site is lyk really stupid!
u need to add some color to it!
it is to fuckin plain!
Comment by shyann on 2005 12 27
shyann, what are you talking about?
Comment by emma on 2006 01 18
nice joke! ;-)
Comment by Ramon on 2006 01 25
classic christmas mac decoration
Date: 2005 12 05
Tags: apple,mac,fun,holidays,papercraft
Do you have loads of idle time around this time of the year? And you have some problems getting into that festive mood you crave? Well, here is one just for you. Get down and dirty with glue and all and make you own festive christmas decoration based on that oh so merry mac classic. Christmas Mac for all (Some paper-crafting required). (via tuaw)
Comments for classic christmas mac decoration
its a dead link…
Comment by roland on 2007 01 27
Is digg better than slash?
Date: 2005 12 03
Tags: digg,slashdot,community,news,web 2.0
Digg.com is on the rise. Ever since it’s first appearance it has gained momentum. And rightfully so I say. The concept is simple and straight forward: Anybody can link to an article anywhere on the net from digg.com. Every user can then “vote” what news are front page material. Completely democratic. And with that recipe it has gained a big readership.
Then there is slashdot.org. Older, (still?) bigger and occupying a very similar space. Slashdot has even coined a term “slash dotted” for when a server breaks down under the onslaught of visitors, brought down on it after being linked from slashdot. Digg can easily do the same these days and frequently does.
Personally I never understood what made slashdot so successful. It is most certainly not the visual style. And with Digg there is a pleasant user driven AND user controlled alternative. Check out Digg vs. Dot (via bombast) to see where the news are really coming from these days. And Alexa’s numbers are clearly indicating where this is headed. I believe digg will not only overtake slashdot but will even expand the readership beyond the current niche. They say they are a “technology news website” but I don’t see why they should stay limited to that.
So I know where my money would be if I had any. Maybe Newsvine.com will stir up the social news market?
(ps: Digg has even inspired a very successful podcast Diggnation recapitulating the top stories every week.)
A video podcast featuring independent animations/cartoons. First internet only tv like format (I have bought in). Get a fresh episode each week. Very nice. XML
Comments for channel frederator
Thanks for the thumbs up on our new channel.
Comment by Fred Seibert on 2005 11 28
Thanks so much! We’re workin’ hard over here putting out more episodes.
Comment by Melissa Wolfe on 2005 12 02
Frederator is here. Right here on this very site ;)
Seems like the whole team is passing through - Thanks for stopping by! You are doing a great job and I can’t wait for the next episode to arrive. Keep it up!
Weekly show presented by Clark Boyd talking about anything technology. From the site: “Whether it’s high-tech or low-tech, old-tech or new-tech...whether it’s happening in Tokyo, Timbuktu or Toronto...Clark’s job is to roam the planet in search of stories that illuminate how technology is being used in a global context.” XML
mashing up can suck too
Date: 2005 11 21
Tags: web 2.0, mash up,digg,slashdot,del.icio.us,social,community,news
diggdot.us is getting some google from me too now. But it really should not. Some clever guys must have thought: “Lets get some popular content (and I mean really popular), put it all on one site and have some google ads running along side so we great rich. People will so dig it. “
And people will indeed dig it because the content is great. But where is the added value? Taking three RSS feeds and putting them together is not exactly adding value. And that is all that is happening there. I fail to see what they are bringing to the party?
So do yourself a favour and give credit (and money) to where it belongs: Digg, slashdot, and del.icio.us/popular - and use diggdot.us once the “niceties” they claim to have added become more apparent.
nuff rant.
José Gonzalez’ Veneer has nothing to do with Gonzales’ solo album, but …
Following Hi-ReS posting about José Gonzalez I did not immediately make the connection to the Sony spot I have just talked about myself. Apparently he made the lovely track oh so nicely playing along to those 250 000 balls jumping/bobbing/rolling down the San Francisco streets. Unfortunately he does not seem to be available from the british installment of the iTunes music store (yet).
But while searching for José I came across another Gonzales and the album solo piano (itunes link). I haven’t heard of either Gonzale(z)(s) before and this one is definitely well outside my usual music scope. Funny how good things sometimes find you.
Now where can I purchase tracks from the Gonzales I was looking for originally?
Loads of brilliant illustrations. Really. Go there. Now! (and the site is really nice too!)
Comments for David Lanham
david is my favirote designer, personally i think the best i have ever seen, his artwork is simply amazing, a great example of a colorful imagination :D
It has been a while since I posted about the bouncy balls somebody photographed bouncing down some steep San Francisco streets. Apparently Sony threw those 100 000 balls downhill in order to make this pretty commercial (quicktime video) for a product line called bravia .I only wonder what the frog is doing in there. Bouncing? (sony’s pun - not mine!)
You don’ t know what web2.0 is? Well you are not alone. Most people using the term these days don’t know either. So go ahead and get clued up. But keep in mind that knowing the history does not mean you automatically know where it is headed. 9.5 million citations in Google mean “web2.0” is on the run. (via de:bug (german))
If I were to describe the perfect result for an ongoing search (on the internet and in book stores) I have been doing I would end up describing visualcomplexity.com. Now i found it by pure chance and I am happy. Who cares that I had no real idea what I was looking for in the first place. This is it. (via generator x)
Rollr is not out of the door yet and already it has received credit for the design (- of the holding page that is). How nice is that? Thanks stylereactor!
Fantastic project in which artist Ji Lee places big bubble stickers on top of ads all over New York City. Passersby then fill them in. The results can be found on this web site. Great! (via link log).
With the OPML file format becoming THE new buzz over the last few weeks I think the time is right to officially announce our own take on all this.
Wikipedia says the following about OPML: “OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines. Originally developed by Radio UserLand as a native file format for an outliner application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators.”
Dave Winer’s recent article on Really Simple Syndication titled “Next steps in RSS, Reading Lists” does capture the basic concepts quite nicely. Innovative applications like Podnova already tie in remotely stored OPML files and many more are to come.
With the OPML file format becoming THE new buzz over the last few weeks I think the time is right to officially announce our own take on all this. Rollr.com is currently developed by John Carlin and myself and I am pleased to tell you that we already have a working version with a strong subset of the full functionality. Progress has been great recently and we hope to enter a private BETA phase in the very near future.
As a social tool Rollr will allow you to find and manage OPML files with the ability to slice it in a number of interesting ways.
You will be able to find, roll(meaning group) and tag feeds, to share entire rolls with others and import and export any number of rolls to use in other applications. The practical applications are vast and there are plenty of hooks to integrate it into your work flows.
Leave us your email at Rollr.com if you want take part in the BETA test and also to learn when we eventually will open the curtain. You can also subscribe to our dedicated Rollr release RSS feed of course.
I am very excited about all this and can’t wait to show you more very soon!
This definitely looks excellent. I just recently wrote a post about the topic of “Reading Lists” and then came across your post a little later. Very excited about Rollr.com. I updated my post mentioning it and I will probably make a post about Rollr tomorrow as well. Can’t wait to make rolls :)
Comment by Brian Benzinger on 2005 10 16
Hi Brian,
thanks a lot. We are so pleased with the initial responses we’ve received. Being mentioned on an established high quality blog like solution watch does help a great deal!
I’ll make sure you will be among the first to make rolls :)
Comment by alex on 2005 10 17
Loks like a very good idea.
I have added the rollr page to stylereactor.net
I can’t wait for the release!
By the way, I love your little icon creator, it’s so ingenious!
On Sunday I am going to meet up with some of the people I have met in Syria back in August. They are coming to London for the second workshop and to discuss the overall development of the project. While they are staying for a whole week my involvement will unfortunately be very limited this time. Soda’s essential task to build Nahnou-Together.org is finished and the web site is already used both in London and in Damascus.
As usual with a project of this size and with so many diverse stake holders involved, many compromises had to be found. But looking at the result and the contributions pouring in, I am very pleased. A quote from Nahnou-together does capture the idea nicely: “Young people in Damascus and London are getting to know each other through art. British Council and Tate Britain are running a project for teenagers to explore their cultural identities together.” - and the collaborative element beyond the two week-long workshops is made possible mainly via the web site we have created.
It features a mix of English and Arabic postings by various people - Many of which I have had the pleasure to meet both in London and in Damascus. The very different technical set-ups used, and the major differences between the two languages made this an exceptional project. I think the team has achieved a great deal in a very short time and I look forward to wrap it all up by giving an internal talk at the Tate next week. When the project will eventually come to its conclusion in March we will revisit to work out how to present the result to the public in a physical exhibition.
This was a very exciting and challenging project and I am glad to have had the chance to partake in something so unique. Meeting the team on Sunday will be fantastic - I can’t wait to return some of the great hospitality I have encountered in Syria.
go underground
Date: 2005 10 03
Tags: maps, visualisation,psp,endgadget
engadget has collated a nice comprehensive list of metropolitan subway/underground/tube maps readily formated for the PSP (and any other mobile device with picture displaying capabilities). Most major cities are available already.
I am now carrying the maps for London, Munich, Chicago and NY in my bulky pocket. (via debug [german])
Fantastic tool to make your own comic strips. There is already an excellent collection and a community buzzing with comments about them. Comes in English and Slovenian and is sooo good. Aaron got me hooked with his creation. Go make your own now and let me see them. Please.
If I would drop my powerbook (curse those slippery hands) with a result resembling the one you can see here, I would probably run around in circles and scream. Jürgen Siebert on the other hand just cooly recovers his data and publishes the horrific beautiful picture of the broken powerbook display as a desktop background. Fontblog is in german but you can find the download links for the wall paper in various sizes towards the bottom of the entry. Be advised that this link contains graphic description and imagery of hardware traumas!
slawesome.com is in a very early alpha stage - but working nevertheless. Go and talk email if that is your thing. It was announced on we break stuff (which seems to be in a design transition phase as well). That site is due for its own dedicated link anyway. Soon.
terrorists did not scare me
Date: 2005 09 25
Tags: news,boing boing,comment
The recent attacks on London did not really scare me. Not personally I mean. London is a big city after all. But this story on boing boing finally does the trick. A random geek (just like you and me) picked up by the police. Computers confiscated, flat searched - a whole life turned upside down for not looking an officer in the eyes? Of course one never knows how much truth is behind an account like this - but this so could have been me. And this was merely unpleasant for the “suspect” whereas Jean Charles de Menezes paid a much higher price for being suspect. Sometimes I wonder what exactly we are fighting for here. The Patriot Act, and later Homeland Security both gave me the shivers when I was still living in the US. Does the cause still justifies these means? Did it ever?
For once a site that would deserve the label “personal playground”. Watch out for new features at least once a week. Klaas has thrown in so many already, that I can not possibly list them all - just check out the latest addition “Kaffee oder Tee” to get the idea. Great pictures as well, many featuring friends from Munich. Keep it coming!
I found swissmiss by accident - and recognized her as one of my former co-students from way back in munich. Enough reason for me to keep an eye on her blog; and what a great blog that turned out to be. Greetings to NY!
Comments for swissmiss
Hey Alex! Thanks for linking to my blog! I am definitely going to be a returning visitor on yours - Keep it up! NYC and I are waving. Make sure to drop a note should you be in the big apple sometime soon! Tina/swissmiss
opera is free now. and i could not care less. should one try it anyway? and if so, why? (this is a mac user asking)
Comments for opera (as in the browser)
I say no. It’s ugly as helll!
Comment by nooon on 2005 09 27
You are mine
Date: 2005 09 12
Tags: apple,iPod,music,gizmo
I was about to give up hope on Friday and had already started to brace myself for a weekend of anticipation when it finally arrived. The iPod nano was delivered by a bike currier(!?) instead of a normal delivery van (all of which had passed through much earlier). I guess Apple wanted to make sure to get a few out to the early adopters so that they would start bragging about it as early as possible. And bragging I did!
Every random person I met this weekend had to touch and feel it.
It is the same warm and fuzzy feeling I had when I received my very first “first generation iPod”. Only that the whole experience is now boiled down to its essence. It is literally flawless. Go get one if you can.
Comments for You are mine
Oh yeah, baby!!! I bought one right after launch for my wife and it should be here today. Surprises!!!
Comment by luxuryluke on 2005 09 12
You’d have to kill me first before I buy an iPod.
Comment by Ramon on 2005 09 16
I just bought a ipod mini a few weeks before this nano came out, d’oh! Why was I not informed before making my purchase!
Comment by Dave on 2005 09 23
Hi Dave - not sure if you are an apple user (aside from the iPod). That kind of thing is bound to happen if you are, as Apple keeps playing this trick on everybody. No warnings. Never. Ever. I guess one could see that as a kind of freedom too :)
Ramon> I am not so keen for you to have one to go to that extend.
Comment by alex on 2005 09 23
@Ramon: Why would I want you to buy an iPod, and even less: why would I want to kill you. I don’t get your logic, but i hear what you are saying. And I don’t usually take black and white comments at more than face value. I hope you started a blog to state all of your angst and fears and ...
Comment by luxuryluke on 2005 09 23
Hopefully you’re happy with it, Alex; I actually just bought a mini on Friday instead of a Nano, for many reasons: tougher case, tougher screen, more storage, and bigger size. One look at a Nano in the flesh made me realize: Apple wants you to lose this thing, that much is clear!
Comment by Ian Russell on 2005 10 03
Hi Ian - I am indeed very happy with it. It has all I could possibly hope for in an iPod and in any mp3 player in general. It looks and feels solid enough and has just the right size for me to be still perfectly usable and also small enough to come along everywhere.
I might put it into the washing machine one day - but i won’t loose it anymore or less then other gizmos a carry around with me :)
It does not scratch any easier then any previous white model - but on the black those scratches do show more. And you are right that scratches are virtually not happening on the mini - I do prefer the nano over the mini (which is still present in this household) but can see the point in your choice too.
After all they both have the same navigation - and that is what makes them stand apart from the crowd.
I am back from Damascus. I actually returned serveral days ago already. I would have hoped to publish something during my stay but there was just no chance to do so. That is because I had such a great but also very very busy and ultimativly limited time there.
I saw amazing things, met fantastic people and had a chance to work with a great team on a very exciting project!
I am a lucky one!
This deserves a lot more than this feeble posting and so I will cut it short at this point. The image is one of many but they are still waiting to be sorted out.
What else? A few quick bullet points…
- Got back and all the sudden found my new version 4 of plasticshore not that compelling anymore. This might pass but then it might not. Kept me from posting at least. All designers are sissies.
- Others seem to disagree: Since the relaunch a few weeks ago I have received almost 100000 pageviews. That is a lot. At least for this site. The Google ranking is way up too. And I found myself linked too from some very impressive sites.
- Sony finally launched the PSP in Europe. So that replaces that special feeling I had for the last few months with a certain unease as I do not seem to be able to connect with the european PSPs. Whats wrong? Anybody experiencing the same?
- Apple launched the new iPod nano today… Errr...and I just had to order one. Status says “shipped”. So maybe tomorrow. Nice and black and 4 GB strong.
- I am working hard towards implementing all the learning outcomes from the workshop in Syria into the project’s site so that we can launch it soon. e.g. Arabic text defenitely has to be aligned to the right and also flows from the right to the left (even if mixed with english on the same page). Understood. Done. Still more.. I better get on with it now.
Comments for Damascus, London, iPods and a designer’s chore
Welcome back!
What version PSP do you have? I’ve noticed a few things since trying to play with a few of my friends. I have a Japan PSP by the way.
I attempted to play multi player Ridge Racer with my friend. I have 1.5 Firmware and a US version of Ridge Racer. He had 2.0 Firmware and a Japan Version of Ridge Racer. We basically couldn’t get it happening.
Then the other night I played 2 player MediEvil with a guy that had Firmware 2. Our game versions were the same though.
So I’m guessing it’s down to the games? Cos the different firmware doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Comment by Scott Mackenzie on 2005 09 09
Hi Scott,
I have a US PSP with the Japanese 2.0 Firmware. I have tried Lumines and Ridge Racer (both north american) against a European PSP (European firmware 2.0) with european games. Both games refused to see each other. I am going to try Wipeout Pure soon but I am somehow not expecting it to work. I am inclined to believe it is due to the Japanese firmware but than I do not see why it should be. I have not found any reports regarding this on the net so far.
This is very annoying and I just hope it is not another Sony-anti-consumer-cock-up.
btw. Infrastructure mode is working fine so wifi is not simply broken on my PSP.
Comment by alex on 2005 09 12
wasn’t there a new localized version of fw2 released yet?
Comment by luxuryluke on 2005 09 12
Hi Luke,
there is an US 2.0 version indeed. However you can not install it on top of a 2.0 (any region) version. It just tells you that your system is up to date already and that there is no need to upgrade… But I believe they are all identical anyway. sigh.
the comics found on the last pages of fantastic gaming magazine EDGE are not great - but they are optimized for the psp browser now with a dedicated little site. That is really the only reason to give it a try.
I have just come back from a lovely weekend trip to Cornwall. We finally got around to try surfing and it was a blast!
Back in London I am busy again with preparation for my trip to Damascus later this week. That includes keeping an eye on the weather of course:
Forecast for today’s high temperature: 41° Celsius! And clear sky for the next 5 days straight as well. Who’s idea was it to go there in mid August?
Comments for hot hot hot
if you think that is too hot, let me go - I think I can deal with it. Cornwall was fantastic but I was feeling cold 80% of the time
Comment by lilo on 2005 08 15
but, oh how nice and warm it is in the wetsuit - I wish I could wear one all the time!
Comment by lilo on 2005 08 15
I’m back in California, and looking forward to getting back to the surf. I couldn’t help but make a comment at the mention of surfing.
Comment by Scott on 2005 08 15
Hm - hot hot hot for about three weeks allready. Are you staying for such a long time?
It is going to happen. I will travel to Damascus on August 19th. The passport issue is resolved and I believe the tickets have been bought already. The project is coming along nicely and I hope to be able to show you what it is all about soon.
And I am working really hard to get the gallery ready before leaving! ..mhm… pictures
This one has it all: Art, Gaming, Processing and Huddersfield (where James not is). Found via Pixelsumo. I love the game and I always knew there was more to it. Those hours were never wasted! Told ya.
Screenspire is showing some great sites - and now mine too! Thomas Marban just informed me that my site has been added to the growing collection. Thanks!
(screenspire shows screenshots, so thanks go also to the idiot, who created the penis icon that is inluded with my entry for ever now).
The arguably most important feature added with the updated Sony PSP firmware (version 2.0) is the web browser. With loads of units sold already and Europe joining the fun soon too, we can expect a huge hype about this browser. Many websites, both commercial and personal, will rush in. Trust me. I am a user and I want them to be there too.
Several sites have made the move already. Most create an alternative version optimised for the PSP, so users have to navigate to a different url and get an altogether different experience. Have a look at very nice pgoz.com from portable gaming resolution to see what i mean. Looks lovely on the PSP but not so much on a regular screen.
I wanted to make this very version of plasticshore work and display on the psp and found once again, that it really pays off to work with web standards.
[UPDATE: This article was written based on an earlier version of plasticshore. You might want to read the original version instead]
But first things first: The PSP does announce itself as a full scale browser. So I was not able to simply declare a different media type in the CSS link (e.g. for a mobile device). In order to deliver CSS rules specifically to the PSP I needed to construct a conditional with the http user agent string instead. I used the following to do that in PHP:
if (eregi("PSP", $_SERVER[’HTTP_USER_AGENT’])) { X } else { Y }
which translates into: If the user agent contains “PSP” deliver CSS X otherwise deliver CSS Y. Now let’s talk about X:
The biggest hurdle on getting content to display on the PSP of course is the very reduced screen size. It is beautiful and all, but for today’s web 480 horizontal pixels just don’t cut it. Luckily the design of plasticshore did already scale from 740 pixels at the lower end to infinity (You might want to try the text zoom in your browser to see what I mean).
But even after I had taken down the minimum resolution, my 3 columns were just 2 too many for the PSP. Again I was lucky as the basic layout is separated nice and tidy into its own CSS file. So by simply hiding the link to the that css file from the PSP I was already halfway there with everything flowing neatly in one single column with a little padding on both sides.
The rest was basically tweaking certain rules the PSP did not like (in particular my background-images were displayed all funny) and readjusting sizes and spacing. The PSP also did not like my clever navigation concept or at least some aspects of the javascript used. I did not venture into fixing it though, but rather relied on it to degrade gracefully. A minor change in the visual style made the three bars you would normally switch between stack up neatly on top of the site.
And that’s it. No major redesign or reworking required. I simply translated the current look and feel into the new environment and had absolutely no trouble doing so. It is all live and running now, so if you have a PSP at hand go ahead and give it a try.
And If you think it is crazy to do all this just to have one’s site work on a portable gaming console - keep in mind, that the same modified CSS files can be used now, to port this site onto any mobile device (small screen) by simply embedding it with the correct media declaration.
So let me know if you read this on your PSP. I certainly will, even if I am the only one (for now). And if you know of any other sites rendering nicely on the PSP or if you have made the move yourself drop me a note into the comment box.
Comments for make your website PSP ready
Excellent idea and execution. Is there any way to duplicate this kind of functionality for other handheld devices? I’d be interested to find out how to increase page readability on a Palm or PocketPC.
Comment by Jake Tracey on 2005 08 08
Hi Jake,
the method should be easily adaptable to any device/browser combination.
But firstly one should link to the alternative (small screen optimised) style sheets like this:
That will work nicely as long as the device does not think it has/is a full scale browser (like the psp does). For those you need to employ the conditional method as described in the post. The only problem is to find out, what to look for in the user agent string.
Google returned oodles of possible strings, so you either have to special case every single option or you try to check for some more generic terms like:
PSP, handheld, mobile, PDA, Pocket PC, CE, palm
There is a danger of producing false positives when doing this so that people on regular browsers get to see the stripped down version. The mobile version would also need to be fluid to an extend to work on the varying screen sizes.
Having looked at this now, I think I might implement some of it here on plasticshore. Just need a few different mobile devices to test with. Anybody interested in helping out :) ?
Comment by alex on 2005 08 09
great tut, thanks for sharing.
Comment by Dan on 2005 08 27
Great post with info
Comment by Wildoman on 2005 08 28
Hi Alex,
Just wanted to let you know that I saw this page and wanted to thank you for the kind words you had for my psp portal site http://pgoz.com/
We have some big plans in the future, but took some baby steps.. which is why there are 2 sites. Hopefully in the near future that won’t be the case anymore :)
Take it easy,
Lloyd Hannesson
Comment by Dasme on 2005 09 08
hi hows it going,
you think you can do a step-by-step process, and maybe what are required to do this?
thanx
Comment by Daniel on 2005 09 18
Thanks everybody for the good feedback on this!
Lloyd> Good to see you passing through. Keep up the good work with your podcast!
Daniel> I am afraid this post plus comments is already as detailed as I can make it at this point. It was not really meant as a tutorial but should only show by example how the topic could be approached. Good luck anyway!
Comment by alex on 2005 09 21
I would love to know more about this, swapping css files for different users, specifically treo PSP and blackberry users.
nice, had been using
if(stristr($HTTP_USER_AGENT, ‘PSP’) === FALSE) {
with limited results, with the use of eregi i was able to quickly slelect my psp stylesheet as the default and then made some mods to my site to enable/disable certain classes depending on if the user was on a psp browser or regular browser.
just got my SS finished, but will edfinately be going back and adapting it further to my psp and other mobile devices.
thanks for the ideas
Comment by oatesj77 on 2006 10 10
i need a psp downgrade 3.11-1.5 mail me at if awailable pls
Alex Williams has posted a nicely accessible list of the winners of the Podcast Awards on Corante.
Podcasts are all over the place since Apple integrated them right into iTunes a few weeks ago. If you are not yet switched on, this list is a really good starting point. I am gonna post my own list of long term favourites in due time.
Comments for Podcast Awards
Bravo on your spreading the word. i hope you play MARINA’s Workout Podcasts… help your listeners stay in shape!
Cheers… Roy Kamen
[alex: is this hand made spam? I certainly do not have any listeners. I have removed the url until further explanation]
I can easily count all my funny in-flight moments on 2 fingers. But they are out there. I knew it all along and now there is proof. via Bombast.
Comments for Funny Flight Attendants
now, this is funny! I once was on transatlantic flight of Swiss where they did not get the video system to work, so in order to give us a status report, the flight attendant said “We are sorry for the inconvenience, there is something wrong with the video system, we are going to reset the airplane now, then you should be able to enjoy our movie selection”, my seat neighbor then worriedly remarked “I don’t really need the movies that badly, just don’t mess with the airplane...”
Comment by lilo on 2005 08 08
Love the picture.
Comment by Emma on 2005 08 08
Einstein is asking:
Date: 2005 08 04
Tags: fun,coudal.com
”Who owns the fish?“ Einstein is said to have posed the question and is also reported to have claimed that only 2% of humanity would be able to answer it. Some evil soul sent this riddle to Verena before and we both wrecked our brains over it real good. But we both found the solution in the end (I was a bit quicker though :-).
Now neither of us can remember the right answer anymore. You could say that makes our place among the upper 2% a bit questionable. Not so much for lack of proof but simply for the bad memory performance. I am definitely not going to do it again though - this really requires some serious thinking!
But I am happy for you to have a go. This time the right answer even gets you a chance to win something over at Coudal. Feel free to post your findings in the comments.
Comments for Einstein is asking:
not true - I was quicker in the end - there is an error in the riddle and for real good thinkers that is confusing. real good thinkers can turn to me for advice when they encounter the problem. that is about 0.75 % of the worlds population.
Comment by verena on 2005 08 04
Now there is a bad looser. I was not faster and Einstein got it wrong of course.
Comment by alex on 2005 08 04
"loser” with one “o”, sweetie
Comment by verena on 2005 08 04
"Now there is a bad looser. I was not faster and Einstein got it wrong of course.”
Don’t doubt a statement until you’ve looked at the evidence. Then you can bash the loser :-p
Comment by Zach Blume on 2005 08 04
i think i got it.
anyone want to compare answers?
Comment by elan on 2005 08 05
zach: Been there, done that. Bashing was appropriate :)
elan: Either people are really lazy or I have mostly readers from that 98% only. Or they all want to win really bad. My own result is still locked away in the depths of this non functioning brain of mine.
all: Maybe things get easier if you don’t rely on pen and paper only but use this handy fish calculator.
Flo has opened the doors to his all new “rockin’ the casbah” only recently (when he was still with us islanders). Go there now and welcome this very good friend of mine.
I don’t know how reliable their tracking method is, but they have a neat selection of those viral clips. Makes for some band width intense browsing if nothing else. And you can tell your friends to stop sending you those heavy emails.
Making ”doodles that move“ is as much fun as it sounds. I am sooo pleased to have helped Ed’s brain child into the world.
play? check! education? check! art? check! That is so soda.
(Don’t forget: Moovl needs java to run for countless hours of fun. )
mighty mouse
Date: 2005 08 02
Tags: mouse,apple,bluetooth
So Apple unveiled its Mighty Mouse today. Not with one button, not with two buttons but with no buttons at all! I was wondering how they would ever move out of that “single button"-corner after they took such a strong stand in there. And it was a very dark corner indeed. Dark as in medieval. Forcing generations of Mac users to keep one hand on the keyboard might have had some benefits - I fail to see them though.
So now everybody is shouting what a bold and great step this is. “The best mouse ever”, “Complete innovation”... I am inclined to believe it is, as Apple has proven its design abilities again and again and I am sure somebody over there has thought really hard and long about this. But guys.. lets get some hands-on testing done first. The mouse click is strong in our lifes and I believe it won’t go away easily.
And Apple’s mouse track record is not completely good looking:
First: to come up with the thing in the first place (= very cool).
Second: to cease working on it for decades interrupted only by that round thing we all would like to forget (= not cool).
The expense for an extra mouse had to be factored in for years now when buying any Mac (and still has as this is a mighty extra for the time being). And what is this cable thing about? Failing to get faster processors in, Apple substituted with better equipment so that it is really hard to get a Mac without Bluetooth these days.
So the way to go is: Get this mouse now and then get it again but Bluetooth enabled in 2 month? Nice move.
Sorry, but I had to do the rant after reading way to many “I-need-to-get-this” posts. I love Apple. And I am getting one anyway. Even with the stupid cable. Mightily fast.
Comments for mighty mouse
Unbelievable but true.
I’m using the “round thing” and it’s no fun using it. I always thought about buying a mouse with two buttons. But when I left my Mac the problem with the “round thing” was forgotten. Perhaps I always was too lazy two buy a new one.
But now I think there is a strong raeson to go straight to the next apple dealer. Mightily fast.
Comment by felix on 2005 08 03
I have yet to lay hands on one of these myself, but there are loads of rather encouraging initial impressions poring in now. The cable issue prevails of course ...
My favorite design company in the world. Cofounded by Andre and me back in 2000 I left it in the able hands of Flaccus & Andre who have taken excellent care of it ever since. Look out for the amazing stuff the boys (and girls) are doing. Expect me to join the fun again!
unmatchedstyle features plasticshore
Date: 2005 08 01
Tags: unmatchedstyle.com,design,plasticshore
Plasticshore.com has been listed on Unmatched Style. I am thrilled - especially after reading the very kind words of their review. I have been subscribed to their RSS feed for ages and found many very inspirational sites through them. So being listed there myself is a great honor. Thanks a lot guys! And a warm welcome goes out to all the new visitors making my logfiles go crazy right now.
Comments for unmatchedstyle features plasticshore
Excellent work. I just found your site via Unmatched Style. This is very well done… nice minimal layout and color scheme.
Comment by Scott Mackenzie on 2005 08 01
Thanks Scott! Had a look at your site too and love the big pixelated speech buble. Are you affiliated with Blinksale?
What’s more inspiring than deep space images of nebulae and space fog? - Noscope is.
Sony PSP
Date: 2005 07 31
Tags: sony,psp,import,homebrew,mp3,atrac
I have bought a Sony PSP not long after is was released in the US. And I have been really happy with it ever since. BUT: I am living in Europe which got seriously left out in the rain by Sony when they pushed back the european launch of the PSP again and again. We are talking about September here! I must admit it makes me still feel a bit special to have one and you get some seriously jealous looks when you pull it out but it basically means I am cut off from any supply of new games and I am stuck with the initial stock I brought over several months ago now. But that does not even matter because there are just no games coming out anyway.
There are announcements and release dates being pushed backwards but there have been very few actual releases so far.
So there is a gorgeous device and a strong interest to spend more money on it and simply no way of doing so.
Well at this point we may enter the world of homebrew: Clever people managed to break the various shields Sony put in place and created a whole range of applications to run on the psp. That triggered an arms race with sony updating the firmware several times closing more and more backdoors. Sony is currently in the lead of this race with the latest firmware (1.52 US) keeping any non official software from running. Mind you that non of these firmware updates had any feasible advantages for the user!
So right now there are next to no new games (certainly nothing interesting and nothing for europe anyway) and a tightly closed system which would be perfectly capable to run third party software (there was already a browser, a chees game, etc..).
I think Sony is once again not getting it and misses out on a big chance here - think mini disk, think ATRAC. If they meant the PSP to be the fabled iPod killer this is just not the way to go about it. And that is not for technical reasons but only for their (unfriendly?) attitude towards users. I do see the economic point in all this but I think that is a very shortsighted. They just missed the whole mp3 train and apparently haven’t learned anything from it. And I do not think that is simply down to Sony’s ambiguity being both content provider and entertainment device producer.
Well after all this let’s talk about the good things: There is a Firmware update 2.0 coming. Actual it has been released already, but in Japan only. It finally offers a web browser, support for AAC files as used in iTunes and the iPod, and more… So there is a big user benefit for once. People went ahead and installed the japanese version on their US PSPs. Against Sony’s explicit advice! And apparently it is working just fine with out any flaws. It even sports an english interface. So why would Sony want to keep this from its US customers? I have no idea. And I do not feel like waiting much longer…
Comments for Sony PSP
alex,
in response to the post in my blog about the chat, thanks for the positive feedback! i saw an implementation of your work at another site, and then found your source. that really opened up the doors to me for learning ajax, and if you check out my rss aggregator, you’ll see that i’m thrilled about the whole thing.
at any rate, i’m anxiously awaiting your 1.1, and would like to talk to you about maybe collaborating efforts, as i’ve got some ideas that could be thrown into the mix.
let me know what you think.
Comment by elan on 2005 08 05
Hi elan,
I like your rss aggregator! Thanks for including my content. I did one ages ago (long before I even have heard of ajax) on plasticpilots.com/news.php which does not do much but aggregating. As of this moment it has aggregated over 6000 postings! It is almost becoming a tiny ”way back machine“.
I have had a look around and after seeing your chat implementation and others I feel my version 1.1 needs a lot more work to be a significant contribution. So I am afraid I have to push back the release for now. But that does make me even more open to any ideas you have. Collaboration is good! Always!
Mark is freely sharing his insights into design and turned his site into great resource and inspiration. It was also Mark with his excellent site who first directed my attention towards the Expression Engine which I am using to run my own site now. Thank you for that!
Apart from the stunning (and strikingly simple) design of the site itself Wolfgang Bartelme also produces some of the best icons out there. Pair that with great quality posts and articles and you have a winner.
new 10th planet
Date: 2005 07 30
Tags: science,nasa,atronomy,planet,mars,discovery
First the ice rink on Mars, now an all new planet. I have no intention to turn this into an astronomy blog but I can not let this pass either. Planet X is presumably slightly bigger then pluto (which isn’t all that big anyway) and really far far out there. Get the details from Nasa directly.
ice skating on mars
Date: 2005 07 29
Tags: nasa,mars,science,discovery
This has yet to receive the kind of media coverage I would have expected: Ice on Mars. In plain view. Just like that. This strikes me as really big news especially considering how much money and effort has been spent to find exactly that. Now let’s find some life next.
Failing that the first manned mission will at least get a chance to do some recreational ice-skating.
bouncy balls
Date: 2005 07 29
Tags: flickr,bravia,sony,video,fun
Oh my ... I so would have loved to see all that bouncing! Can anybody point me to a video of it?
Comments for bouncy balls
If the camera would have panned just slightly to the right you would be looking at the flat where I grew up! What fun. It looks like the balls were dropped from the top of that building. Many years ago, the resident of the penthouse in that apartment building was the guy who owned Seabiscuit.
Comment by Bev on 2005 07 29
There is a video of the bouncing balls from flickr over at iFilm. Screenhead had the news. ..bouncing on now.
When I was in Germany the last time around I had planned to get a new passport but did not find the time in the end (- mine expires this august). Of course back then I did not expect that I would need one any time soon. And this is Europe after all and getting a new passport in London should be easy enough anyway (or so I thought). Indeed it would have been if:
1. Germany was aware you ever left (forms to be submitted in Germany)
2. You have a valid birth certificate (very old form)
3. A prove of residency
4. £30
I had nothing but #4 when I first learned, that I was meant to travel to Damascus (دمشق) in Syria within a few weeks. That was two weeks ago.
[... Details of fight with bureaucracy omitted ...]
Yesterday I finally sent of my brand new preliminary passport to the Syrian embassy to hopefully get the required visa in time to travel to Damascus on August 19th. If all goes well I will run and participate in a workshop organised by the Tate Britain and the British Council as part of a project soda has been commissioned to contribute to.
"HTML is hard and besides, we mostly animate things for a living”. That is what they say on their site and that is why you should go straight for everything that moves and takes long to download. Oozes out style. Long time favourite.
Need a throw away email address? Quick and hassle-free mailinator comes to the rescue. A service one can’t do without these days
Comments for mailinator
tempinbox.com is an alternative that also provides RSS feeds for inboxes.
Mike
Comment by mike on 2005 08 01
Mailinator provides RSS too
Comment by Bob on 2005 08 17
I Love it.I am getting so much spam I didn’t know what to do.I like to read forum’s like computer junkies,C/Net, Smart Computing.They send a e-mail to my e-mail address.What do you do then? Steven Hogden
Comment by Steven Hogden on 2006 08 31
i’m using a similar disposable service called spaml. i think its better than malinator because its having a web 2.0 stye interface. i love it. damn! its hard to explain.. you can try their service on http://www.spaml.com
Beautiful information visualization from places & spaces. It does almost seem hand drawn (which of course might be due to the strong compression and rather small size). There is much more like this available and also some very interesting information about the nature of these “places & spaces”. To bad I have missed the physical exhibition when it passed through London. Maybe next year in Chicago?
Found via information aesthetics.
Carly Comando’s brilliant “Everyday” single is finally available for purchase. The track was used by Noah K in his video showing self-portraits taken 
“this is the darkest command i have ever issued on a computer:
I am back from Damascus. I actually returned serveral days ago already. I would have hoped to publish something during my stay but there was just no chance to do so. That is because I had such a great but also very very busy and ultimativly limited time there.
The arguably most important feature added with the updated Sony PSP firmware (version 2.0) is the web browser. With loads of units sold already and Europe joining the fun soon too, we can expect a huge hype about this browser. Many websites, both commercial and personal, will rush in. Trust me. I am a user and I want them to be there too.
The rest was basically tweaking certain rules the PSP did not like (in particular my background-images were displayed all funny) and readjusting sizes and spacing. The PSP also did not like my clever navigation concept or at least some aspects of the javascript used. I did not venture into fixing it though, but rather relied on it to degrade gracefully. A minor change in the visual style made the three bars you would normally switch between stack up neatly on top of the site.
So now everybody is shouting what a bold and great step this is. “The best mouse ever”, “Complete innovation”... I am inclined to believe it is, as Apple has proven its design abilities again and again and I am sure somebody over there has thought really hard and long about this. But guys.. lets get some hands-on testing done first. The mouse click is strong in our lifes and I believe it won’t go away easily.
I have bought a Sony PSP not long after is was released in the US. And I have been really happy with it ever since. BUT: I am living in Europe which got seriously left out in the rain by Sony when they pushed back the european launch of the PSP again and again. We are talking about September here! I must admit it makes me still feel a bit special to have one and you get some seriously jealous looks when you pull it out but it basically means I am cut off from any supply of new games and I am stuck with the initial stock I brought over several months ago now. But that does not even matter because there are just no games coming out anyway.
Just got a beta invite.. stoked to try it out. Mind inviting me to your next game? WW user name is ‘stirman’.
Comment by Stirman on 2007 03 07
and good posting at blog.weewar.com :)
Comment by Gloom on 2007 03 08
Can I be invited?
Comment by Ecos on 2007 03 15
The game is similar to Dots, but more complicated. You would enjoy it!
Comment by Human on 2007 03 19
I’ve been playing for about a week now. There are some minor technical and gameplay issues that need to be ironed out, but it’s already loads of fun. I have four games going at the moment.
Comment by Joel Odom on 2007 03 28