So I’ve been wondering this for a while since I was having really big problems with doing screen captures and editing with them in Adobe Premier. I’ve found the answer and the answer is Lagarith lossless codec. Grab it here: http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html
We, as a species, are prone to debate. The human race isn’t always into the greater good in the way that, for example, ants are. We quibble, squabble and do other things that end in –bble over sometimes the most seemingly banal things. I can still hazily remember bantering about why Cocoa Puffs is the far superior chocolate cereal versus the lack-luster performance of Cocoa Pebbles (Count Chocula ended up being the dark-horse winner of the debate, the marshmallows pushed him over the top).
While we here in the super-secret underground base that is Grok HQ would like to think of ourselves as a somewhat evolved ‘above that’ breed of homo-sapiens we nonetheless devolve into slack-jawed debating primates from time to time. Most recently Martin and I got into over the tablet PC market upon hearing the news that Apple will soon unveil its iSlab or iSlate or iBuythisnowitswaytoocool. While tablet PCs make up something around 1.4% of all computer sales worldwide Martin still thinks they’re “the future”. Well, I had some other thoughts on the matter…
My basic issue with tablet computing or perhaps mobile computing in general is that I’ve always thought of it as something of the odd duck as far as computing is concerned. While I do agree that there is a need for mobile devices in fields such as medical, construction, military etc. I always thought that the mobile computer was a bit of a contradiction.
We grab our laptops and head-out in the world to do things that we normally do in public, grab a bit to eat, a refreshing drink, but then something goes wrong. Next time you stroll into your local café count the number of people typing away on a laptop, now how many of them have on headphones? We have been freed from the bonds of our desk chairs to escape outside and what is our human response? Put on the ear-goggles, cut ourselves off from the public that we’re happy to be out in, moreover keep up the status-quo that the personal computer is a socially isolating agent. But alas, I’ve drifted off topic and could go on for days about how face to face interaction is slowly degrading, but there is a need to address what’s at hand. Tablet PCs.
From a consumer standpoint the Tablet PC cuts out a niche market with those people who like having the ability to… I don’t really know, reading about tablets I can’t really see how they differ from laptops, outside of that total lack of keyboard thing. In reality the tech of the tablet is a dressed up gimmick with outstanding lip-gloss. At CES Steve Ballmer toyed with a Multi-touch tablet built by HP running windows 7. It was brief but he used touch motions to flip though the pages of an E-Book and bantered about the ability to fit a PC into something that wasn’t much larger then a smart phone. Well Steve, that’s all well and good, I can now take my movies on something smaller then my laptop and flip through my e-books with my finger vs. my mouse. What the tablet PC market is attempting to do is not sell us any new technology but just a different way to use it. So if you feel so inclined to spend the money on a device without a keyboard, put up with shaky handwriting recognition software and basically have a laptop you can finger-paint with then be my guest. I know that Martin is somewhere claiming about the joys of pressure sensitivity and the ability to draw right there on there on the screen and while that’s cool and all. I pretty sure I can do the same with a wacom, and I can use that on a laptop or at home on my desktop. And if that’s all the tablet PC is giving us over a normal laptop, while skimping on storage space and processing power I don’t understand how someone can justify the $800 for what amounts to an oversized iPod touch. If the venerable tech vendors want to attract consumers then make a piece of technology that simplifies or changes my life. ”But Adam,” they’ll say, “this will change the way you view content.” To which I’ll reply, “Yes, you’re right. It’s on a smaller screen.” Don’t repackage old applications into a slim tablet form factor and call them groundbreaking because I can manipulate a photo with my thumb and forefinger. Make me a mobile computer that’s slim enough to be highly portable and powerful enough so I have no need for a desktop, make it so that I can easily upgrade said mobile device so I can stay on top of the latest tech. I’m fed up with gimmicky control schemes leave those to the PS3 6-axis controller and the Wii.
As a budding web developer and designer, I prefer to have all my editing applications and preferences in one place that I can easily take with me, this allowing me to work on my Desktop, laptop, or otherwise. Unfortunately cloud computing has’t reached ubiquity, so I settle for carrying around a 4gb thumb drive with PortableApps installed, an Open Source, free, portable application management package which comes preconfigured with many of your favorites:
If you want to learn more, watch this 2 minute video of how to Use Portable Apps.
I change my desktop background about as often as I change my pants, there’s a once a day minimum on pants/background changing. In the before times I used to flip through the same 50 or so collected backgrounds I had snagged from around the Internet over the last 10 years or so. Last week I had a considerable amount of downtime so I decided that in lieu of just simply changing my desktop I’d make my own, after all I had the time and needed to do something that could be construed as at least mildly productive. After doing the first one I was hooked, I platformed two of my favorite addictions, making stuff and desktop backgrounds. Why this didn’t happen earlier I really cant say but its happened and here I am to share the fruits of my labor on less then busy days. All backgrounds are made for 1600×1200 resolution and some are a little large, in the 1.5mb+ range, and all were made in CS4 Illustrator.
Texted :
Started off as a text collage, I then got really copy happy, then angry with the brush tool. The results - you can almost read the word GROK, and somewhere in there there’s colours that aren’t black, white or grey.
Fake :
Similar to Texted but much more brush happy, maybe to the point of overkill, then again it only took about 10mins from idea to finish. The results - you can almost read “do what you must” and the whole things been combed with the Warp Tool into an ink splattered mess.
Understood :
Unabashed company plugging meets 1000 vector lines. The results - Take two vector lines, press W set yourself to 1000 steps and its go time, the monogram G and tag-line set under a moire pattern, class condensed.
Wasted :
More fun with the blend tool and the division of space, originally named wasted as in wasted time, took a while to become happy with this one . The results - descending blocks of blended vectors, gentle divisions and a warm comfy colour palate give you a big minimalistic hug to set your day in the right direction.
-Adam
Emigre Rocks it Hard Checkout Their Look Back Issue!
Check it out it is a wonderful collection of Emigre, and we here at GROK love Emigre. The normal full collection is somewhere areound $100 but this is $49.95 (or $36.38 when preordered from amazon) and you get the poster, and some music & videos on a CD. Preorder it with amazon or get it through gingkopress
IE6 is the most useless browser that is still around today. According to w3schools.com 13.6% of us are still using this shadey excuse for a browser. You cannot write a decent stylesheet for your site, without having to write another one just for IE6. This really gets in the way of web design. We must destroy this menace. Please go to ie6update.com and get a script you can throw inside your body tags to ask users to upgrade to ie6. The script is none invasive and will not force them to upgrade.
