Kickoff for Mac : This app’s mini-site has been making the rounds on Twitter today, and deservedly so. Try clicking some of the screens in the main slider, enjoy the well-crafted video, and have a peek at the HTML5 markup, too. And of course, download the app. … Read the rest here
Recently, my favourite place to spend time on the internets has been the Rapha Films channel on Vimeo . These high quality short films are not only inspiring and enthusing, but beautifully shot, edited and scored too. It all started with their Rapha & Paul Smith promo video: Which was followed up by ‘City Riding’ (both featuring the can’t-help-but-want-to-imitate Cole Maness ): Then there is Rapha California, which if you ignore the anti-helmet sentiment, is brimming with atmosphere: All three directed by Ben Ingham , with brilliant sound design by Soundfly . I could go on, embedding just about every video they’ve uploaded, but instead, I’ll mention 3 more. Two Broad Arrows a short film inspired by the life of Sean Kelly, Rapha Rides Monti Pallidi and the Tour of California series, starting here . If you’re a cyclist then you’ll no doubt already be aware of these films, but worth highlighting for anyone who hasn’t. … Read the rest here
Two media-centre related things I’ve done recently: Jailbreak my Apple TV to install ATV Flash Black , and update my Boxee Box to v1.1. Heres a quick report of how it went: First the ATV : When the beta of ATV Flash Black was announced last December, I looked into and disregarded, the jailbreak process. Too much hassle if you had updated your ATV from the factory supplied version. Now, the process is straightforward with Firecore’s Season Pass app and a micro-usb cable. Likewise, installing ATV Black was easy when following the instructions, and I was able to add extras onto my Apple TV. … Read the rest here
The Mountain : I won’t even attempt to fumble with adjectives. Just watch. Terje Sorgjerd: A large sandstorm hit the Sahara Desert on the 9th April and at approx 3am in the night the sandstorm hit me, making it nearly impossible to see the sky with my own eyes. Interestingly enough my camera was set for a 5 hour sequence of the milky way during this time and I was sure my whole scene was ruined. … Read the rest here
Yesterday, Brandy Fortune asked me on Twitter if there are “ any major sites written in HTML 5 now “. I decided to throw the question to my Twitter gang , and was of course immediately deluged in answers. Also a small helping of standards politics, which wasn’t really what I was after but probably should have known was inevitable. Le sigh. Anyway, here’s a sampling of the sites most frequently mentioned and how they’re using HTML5, listed in no particular order… Read the rest here
The Hobbit: Filming at 48 fps : I tweeted about this earlier, but it’s worth repeating here so I can excerpt a few highlights. On Facebook, director Peter Jackson describes why 24 fps (frames per second) — the standard frame rate used in nearly every major motion picture — is an antiquated practice: Originally, 24 fps was chosen based on the technical requirements of the early sound era. I suspect it was the minimum speed required to get some audio fidelity out of the first optical sound tracks. They would have settled on the minimum speed because of the cost of the film stock. 35mm film is expensive, and the cost per foot (to buy the negative stock, develop it and print it), has been a fairly significant part of any film budget. … Read the rest here
Do Lectures : An outstanding, responsive design by Trent Walton , Frank Chimero , and Paravel . This is the first I’ve heard of Do Lectures, and it has the feel of a single-room TED. It wasn’t hard to find myself caught up watching Rolf Potts’ “ Time = Wealth ” lecture. (Note that even the videos are responsive.) … Read the rest here
Method & Craft: Combining Vector Shapes in Photoshop : If you could irrationally summarize my 12 years as a professional designer, it would probably be something like this: Years 1-8: Voraciously consume conceptual knowledge, skills, and techniques Years 8-11: Focus heavily on conceptual knowledge and soft skills Year 12: Return to learning some new skills and techniques. Phil Coffman’s tutorial is a perfect fit for year 12. Also see Gerren Lamson’s Unique Vector Shapes in Illustrator . … Read the rest here
Canon Filmmakers Live with Philip Bloom : I’ll be in Miami the next couple days enjoying a full-day workshop with Philip Bloom, basically the co-godfather of DSLR video ( Vincent Laforet is the other), and basically an animal when it comes to producing some pretty fantastic stuff with a DSLR. It’ll be a nice change of pace to sit while someone else presents and talk shop about video rather than web. Other U.S. workshops are still available in Dallas, Austin, Albuquerque, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Tickets are just $150 for the day. … Read the rest here
Hiring: Top-Shelf Designer at Envy Labs : Envy Labs, a Ruby on Rails shop, is seeking a skilled UI designer for their Orlando offices (just a couple hours from my home). They’re a small shop that has grown from one to 16 employees over the past two years. You’ll find photos and even a walk-through video of their offices in the listing. Related, download a copy of their Rails 3 Cheat Sheet (PDF). … Read the rest here
Salman Khan: Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education : Speaking of homeschooling in yesterday’s post , here’s a TED video worth watching. An alternate title for this talk might have been, “Let’s Just Reinvent the Entire Educational System.” This is the first I’ve seen of Salman Khan, and clearly he’s not just a talented educator but a fantastic speaker, too. (Stick around for the standing ovation at the end and then Q&A with Bill Gates.) Learn more and watch the educational videos at Khan Academy . … Read the rest here
There’s something not generally mentioned by those advocating a four-day workweek: tuning out the rest of the world on day five. Lots of us webbies have either promoted the idea of a four-day workweek, or have sought after it, or both. Not a 4/10 workweek , but four days of normal working time and three days of non-working time. Carsonified was one of the first to promote the idea, and recently Ryan Carson wrote once again on the topic. 37signals joined in a little later… Read the rest here
The date for this years Tweed Run , the metropolitan bike ride with style, has been announced as the 9th April. As mentioned back at Christmas, I’m planning to do next years Tweed Run as I need three things: Tweeds, obviously! A bit more fitness (yes, even for a 10 mile bike ride!). My stamina has been getting so much better since October, and I’m losing weight steadily. It’s a great feeling, but I want to be a more confident cyclist before I take part in anything social. … Read the rest here
AisleOne’s Antonio Carusone: A Backup System : I would imagine this is as thorough and redundant as a backup system gets. 6 copies of vital data, 3 copies of unimportant data — spread across Backblaze , Dropbox, iDisk, and a few local drives. There’s a nifty diagram , even. I’m also in the process of assembling a backup system. I went with Crashplan instead of Backblaze because of the option to have a seeded backup drive (scroll down) shipped to your home for the initial backup. Additionally, I purchased a refurbished Airport Extreme to which I’ll attach a Western Elements 2 TB drive . … Read the rest here
Chances are that this advert is already old news to you, but it’s just too good not to post! Tagged: advert , starwars , video , vw … Read the rest here
Frank Chimero, “The Shape of Design” : The latest runaway success on Kickstarter. Currently at $42,000 and rising, and that after just 21 hours since the initial announcement . The intro video, albeit a little long, is quite creative. Frank’s book is sure to be worth backing. … Read the rest here
RØDE VideoMic Pro : I like my current RØDE mic , but I definitely don’t like how cumbersome it is. Not only is this Pro version more compact, but supposedly it sounds much better, too. Scheduled to be released in a few weeks and retail at $230, or about $90 more than the current version. Additional details and a sample video available over at Philip Bloom’s site . … Read the rest here
RØDE VideoMic Pro : I like my current RØDE mic , but I definitely don’t like how cumbersome it is. Not only is this Pro version more compact, but supposedly it sounds much better, too. Scheduled to be released in a few weeks and retail at $230, or about $90 more than the current version. Additional details and a sample video available over at Philip Bloom’s site . … Read the rest here
Interview with The Satorialist’s Scott Schuman : Scott Schuman ( The Satorialist ) really shines in this piece, coming across as a really down-to-earth guy who stumbled onto fame. It’s a promotional video for Intel, but thankfully it’s light on marketing noise. And no details about the equipment used are listed, but I would be willing to bet it was shot with a 5D or 7D . Update: Close. It was 1D Mark IV in the hands of Joe Aguirre (thanks Fabian Sasson ). /via Jon Heslop … Read the rest here
A few changes for beta 2 of the updated reset, presented here: /* http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/ v2.0b2 | 201101 NOTE: THIS IS A BETA VERSION (see previous line) USE WITH CAUTION AND TEST WITH ABANDON */ html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td, article, aside, canvas, details, embed, figure, figcaption, footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, output, ruby, section, summary, time, mark, audio, video { margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; font-size: 100%; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; } /* HTML5 display-role reset for older browsers */ article, aside, details, figcaption, figure, footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, section { display: block; } body { line-height: 1; } ol, ul { list-style: none; } blockquote, q { quotes: none; } blockquote:before, blockquote:after, q:before, q:after { content: ”; content: none; } table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; } First, the small changes: adding embed , output , and ruby to the first rule. I went back and forth on these quite a bit, which is why they weren’t in the first cut. However, none of them seem to be replaced so they’re in. Others, such as command , are replaced and so stay out for the same reason that form inputs are left out. ( img is a special case.) The HTML5 element I’m still stuck on is datalist , which seems sort of replaced but then again maybe not. I’m really close to including it on the same grounds that I include canvas , but it’s hard to know if that’s a good idea… Read the rest here