Best of "Best of ..."
There are many "Best of ..." lists popping up everywhere on the net right now. The categories go from child toys to websites. Ive made a small collection of "Best of":s below.
If you have any others, post them in the comments! (Read more...)
Typographica present their favourite fonts of 2005, Part 1
Quote: The interest in type design is stronger than ever — and the audience is broader too. As public awareness of typography increases, it becomes even more important to use something other than the same old stuff that lingers in your font menu.
We took all this to heart and expanded our coverage this year. I’m pleased to present the first of two Favorite Fonts installments for 2005. Each contributing writer made their own selection with only one requirement: the typeface must have been published or released in the first half of the year. The results are diverse, but a few trends can be drawn from the list:
Check out the complete part #1 at typographica
SiteVista... for phones?
Sitevista, the browser compability check for websites is thinking of expanding their business to mobile sites. These means you can test your mobile sites on different phones, PDAs and smartphones within minutes. A handy tool indeed!
At Sitevistas blog you can post your thoughts on this and cross your fingers that they will develop this product!
High fives
Hot on the heels of the 2005 Year-End Google Zeitgeist thing - "Search patterns, trends, and surprises according to Google" - here's the Media Catalyst list of everything good and bad from 2005 in no particular order/ sense/ anything. I can personally vouch for the wholly unscientific measurement/ selection criteria behind these findings.
- Best game: Samorost 2! Just like the first one, this is a pleasure to play. Lovely visual style that reminds me of Moomins and that ace Czech mole cartoon. Nicely done sound too
- Best TV ad: Orange's "Relationships, they get better with time" ad which uses Brian Eno's Music for Airports. An oasis of restraint and beauty amidst the usual squawks and rattles. Also the "Turn your phone off" one featuring the Joanna Newson tune. Really nice work, particularly well-chosen music.
- Browser bender: Firefox extensions. Particularly the User Agent Switcher (very useful for checking WAP page designs) and Foxposé.
- Worst infestation: Mice! Vermin, but very cute.
- Best site: I really like the new Beck site by Hi-Res. The Hi-Res blog is good too.
- The Long Tail/ Global Microbrand in full effect: All the amazing little one-man boutiques selling handmade stuff. They're popping up all over the place nowadays. Logical conclusion: Etsy - try out the "Shop by colour" feature. Super nice.
- Worst TV ad: Herbal Essences Rainforest Flowers, which features one of the lamest voiceovers ever. The "Where are my socks?" line is particularly hilarious - just a guess like, but they're probably in your sock drawer, as always. This one just beat that dumbass Ariel Sensitive - 'Is gentle something you touch .. or something that touches you?' - advert where the voiceover sounds like she's either about to cry or wet herself.
- Best download: The BBC Open News Archive, where you can download free video footage from the BBC archive, and use it to "create something unique".
- Best 21st Century clothing brand: American Apparel. Great clothes. Cracking ethos. Nice site.
Any more nominations? Stick 'em in the comments. Meanwhile, Happy Xmas to everyone from all us catalysts!
MTV and Microsoft team up to deliever an online music store
During a taping of a MTV news program in New York, Bill Gates said that Microsoft and MTV where together going to launch a new digital music service. The name of this is supposed to be "Urge" and is going live in 2006. Urge will be released at the same time as a new version of Windows Media Player and will of course be integrated into this. Their plan is to have over 2 million downloadble tracks from major and independent labels, but also original content from MTVs programs.
Maybe its just me, but the first thing that came in my mind when I read this was "iTunes!". Hopefully MTV and Microsoft are adding something to this and not only doing exactly the same thing what Apple are doing with iTunes.
.NET Dataset Serialization and Performance
This is a problem that we encountered and solved some time ago. It took quite some effort to solve, so we thought we’d post it up here to maybe be of help to others.
We were developing a web application which demanded that a user traverses a number of screens, presented in the form of a wizard, to provide information about a product. Using the ASP .Net framework and ORM .Net demanded that the data is initially loaded into a Dataset, and any changes to the data are first written to the Dataset, and then saved to the (SQL Server) database.
To deliver a superior user experience, the IA (Information Architecture) specified that the user need not save any updated data across the different tabs, resulting in the data (contained within the Dataset) being preserved over multiple requests to the server. Only when the user finally presses ‘Save’ should the data be persisted to the database.
In order to facilitate this, we had to propagate the Dataset back and forth. Apart from the traditional vehicles of storing data on the request or session, the ASP .Net framework also provides the ViewState to propagate data. However, the ViewState should be used for page fields (such as drop down boxes, input fields and labels) rather than populating it with a serialized representation of the DataSet, which would result in making the page excessively large.
(Read more...)Keywords: .NET,Dataset,Performance,Serialization
Beer and clothing in Amsterdam
We Catalysts celebrated in style on Friday at our Xmas party. Much silliness ensued:
Merci to The Mansion for the excellent service.
The future of HTML
HTML isn't a very good language for making Web pages. However, it has been a very good language for making the Web. This article examines the future of HTML and what it will mean to Web authors, browser and developers. It covers the incremental approach embodied by the WHATWG specifications and the radical cleanup of XHTML proposed by the W3C. Additionally, the author gives an overview of the W3C's new Rich Client Activity.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-futhtml1/?ca=dgr-lnxw01FutureHTML
Ladies love mobile content
The lovely Martina over at Adverblog (hello!) has posted a good little summary of this report from LimeLife about how women use mobile phones.
There's some good stuff about what types of mobile content women like, and how they tend to use it. For me, the most interesting finding is more to do with a bigger picture:
'The mobile phone initially serves as a "private line" for girls 16-17 then evolves to an "always with me connected buddy" during college years'
I've been casually studying how people relationship to their mobile phone for a while now, and this notion of the 'dependable friend' clicks with my observations. In addition to the usual chat/ text/ camera stuff, I've seen people using them as a comfort blanket - killing time while they're waiting in a queue, on a train, in a club, etc. They're either playing games, or just clicking around the interface and fiddling with settings to make it look as though they're doing something useful. I've even seen people absent-mindedly stroking their phone, like a pet. The message they're sending out is "I'm busy, don't bother me".
I find it an interesting and sad paradox that mobile communication devices simultaneously enable people to effortlessly maintain long-distance relationships, while also protecting them from engaging in casual/ short term interactions with other people in their immediate environment. Not so long ago, people used to tip their hats to each other in the street, and greet perfect strangers with a cheerful "Good morning!"
The times, they are a-changin'
Acrobat Reader + Flash Player = Adobe Apollo
With the previous post in mind , this info can be quite interesting.
Quote;
Adobe is working on creating a new product codenamed "Adobe Apollo" that integrates the Macromedia Flash Player with the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader. Adobe Apollo software will provide Macromedia Flash and HTML functionality and will run independent from the web browser. Kevin Lynch disclosed this in a Macromedia MAX 2005 keynote adderss.
Adobe Apollo is seen as the next generation Flash player that run out of the browser and offers Macromedia Central client like capabilities. Meanwhile, Adobe will continue to deliver the standalone version Flash Player and Adobe Reader for viewing and interacting with PDF documents and forms.
Another product, Macromedia Flashpaper, bundled with Contribute, lets users convert documents to Flash (swf) and PDF format.
Read more about it here
Macromedia .... is gone!
Check out the top left corner at Macromedia.com. It has been a while since Adobe bought Macromedia, but we havent seen any changes in the brands or in their products yet. Here is the first step towards a united product portfolio. Lets see what happends with the former Macromedia products from now on.
Hopefully we will see some improvements. Im expecting an integration between the PDF format and flash. Maybe include Acrobat Reader in Flash player?
What do you think about this? Good or bad?
3rd Creative Social, 2005, Barcelona
On the October 27th I jetted off to Barcelona to represent Media Catalyst for the 3rd Creative Social. For those of you that don’t know what this is about, this event is an invitation only conference in which digital creatives from around the world meet up, debate and discuss the latest goings on within the industry and medium, as well as receiving lectures from creative people who exceed in their own arenas. Attendees to the event are all art directors and creative directors (with the odd copy writer) working within reputable companies that produce some form of digital marketing, there were around 30. The event is sponsored by MSN, who help pay for a few of the costs of speakers and venues, but overall take a very much back seat position and simply observe the goings on. The organisers are Mark Chalmers, Strawberryfrog, Amsterdam and Daniele Fiandaca, Proferio, London.
(Read more...)
Open ateliers
Art! Art! ART!I had fun last Sunday at the Open Atelier exhibition at Amsterdam's Rijksakademie van beelende kunsten (National Academy of Visual Arts). James Burke of lifesized clued me in - the exhibitors are art grads who have snagged a grant from the Dutch government to have a space of their own to explore their inspiration.
The results were... mixed, to say the least. Some incrediby self-indulgent/ unoriginal balls, some baffling absurdity, some stuff that must have been the result of spending 5 minutes thinking up the idea, and the rest of the year/ grant on a holiday in Barbados...
Anyway, my wife's favourite was Igor Sevcuk:
And I really liked Ideta Goh:
...who had some crazy CAD stuff - in one room he had actually constructed the above design out of wood. Repetition/ inversion/ scale. Grand!
Apart from that, I really liked walking around the big old military barracks/ stables building that the whole thing was housed in. Damn! I'd like to get my band together and play an immensely loud gig in that place.
