Diversity of skills, similarity of spirit
May 13, 2008
Like any agency, we’ve had our share of hits and misses when it comes to finding the right people to join our business. Proudly, we’ve had far more successes than failures, but nevertheless, it’s disappointing when someone doesn’t work out.
It’s a setback to the business, you and your team, and to them. A result no one likes to reach lightly.
The Engine Room | Huey Nhan | Read more...
How to choose a future-proof video camera
May 9, 2008
If the only video you shoot is clips of your dog for YouTube, most any camcorder will do. But if you're recording your child's first steps or daughter's wedding, you want some assurance that it will still be viewable in 20 or 30 years, when you'll get the most pleasure out of watching it.
While today's digital video formats will undoubtedly be obsolete by then, you can choose a reasonably future-proof video camera by following three key guidelines:
Digital Arts | Becky Waring | Read more...
YouTube, Hulu & Joost: Is there room for all 3?
May 2, 2008
YouTube is the online video service that needs no introduction. According to ComScore, in February in the U.S. alone, 80.4 million viewers watched 3.42 billion videos on YouTube.com (42.6 videos per viewer).
Hulu and Joost, on the other hand, are less well known. Hulu launched at the end of October 2007 as a private beta and didn't go live for the general public until mid-March 2008. Hulu is a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. The site has been widely praised for its slick user interface. On Hulu.com, users can watch full-length TV shows, movies and clips for free. NBC, FOX, MGM, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. provide the content.
Digital Arts | Melissa Chang | Read more...
Is Mato Atom's Bush/Blair spoof an own goal?
May 1, 2008
With little more than six months to go until the US chooses a new president, it's possible that Bush-bashing is more than a little passé – not least because it's so darned easy. Back in the dark days of 2003 it felt as though there was something to be achieved through poking fun at the Texan president, but five years on, slating the president is about as trendy and cutting-edge as a Minidisc player.
Although it's hard to tell exactly when Mato Atom posted the video Champions: Remembering the New World Order on its Web site, given the comments and Diggs it's received, it hasn't been up there longer than a week.
Digital Arts | Digital Arts staff | Read more...
Performance showdown: Flash drives vs. hard drives
April 30, 2008
Solid-state disks (SSD) are probably some of the most talked-about new gadgets of late. They easily distinguish themselves from the mechanical hard drives of the Jurassic period because they have no moving parts. Like USB drives, they use nonvolatile flash memory to store data, but SSDs are wrapped in an enclosure the size of a 2.5-in. mechanical laptop drive and have a SATA interface for an easy connection to the internals of your portable.
Having no moving parts is, naturally, important. There's no platter rotation or read/write head motion so SSDs -- in theory -- should use less power than equivalent mechanical hard drives. They should also (again, in theory) be faster than a mechanical hard drive at just about anything. Working off an electrical grid, there's no time wasted positioning the read/write head and then waiting for it to settle down and start doing its thing. SSDs just do it. (That's a bit of an oversimplification, but it's fair.)
Digital Arts | Bill O'Brien | Read more...
Three online video formats for the future
April 29, 2008
The online video explosion shows no signs of slowing. In February, more than 10 billion videos were viewed online in the U.S. alone, and 72.8% of the Internet audience viewed an online video, according to Comscore.
Unsurprisingly, companies are doing everything that they can to reach this audience. Research groups such as eMarketer are predicting that online video spending will shortly be in the billions, and by 2011, almost 10% of all online advertising money will be dedicated to video advertising.
Digital Arts | Melissa Chang | Read more...
Will Sony play nice with Apple, or turn the screws?
April 29, 2008
Every time you glance down at your Apple iPod to scroll through your music collection, much of the data you are presented with comes from Gracenote's massive database of artists, song titles, and other text and metadata. When you search for music in Apple's iTunes client, the results are largely based on data from Gracenote. And, if you still buy or own CDs, when you slot a disc into a 'Net-connected computer and fire up iTunes, Gracenote is the service that presents you with the names and titles of the tracks.
Clearly, Gracenote's service is central to Apple's sprawling ecosystem of entertainment software, hardware, and services. So when I read the news that Sony is buying Gracenote for US$260 million, I wondered how this will change the relationship between the two companies. Sony is itself a major player in the entertainment industry, and the two companies have several points of friction involving iTunes. They include pricing for iTunes music and competition for TV and movie downloads.
Digital Arts | Ian Lamont | Read more...
Apple smiles as unlocked iPhones abound
April 28, 2008
This strange story, the "disappearance" of iPhones from the markets in which they're being sold, has been the highlight of the last two Apple conference calls with analysts to discuss their financial results. In January's call, Apple COO Tim Cook said that "the number of phones bought with the intention of unlocking them was significant... We see this phenomenon as an expression of very strong interested in the iPhone globally, and in that way it's a good problem to have."
Wednesday, after Apple reported a 1.05 billion dollar profit, it was time for the lasted edition of my favorite reality show, Apple Analyst Phone Call. And sure enough, the unlocked-phone trend continues: "Unlocking is occurring and it's significant," said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. "Our view is that it's a sign of clear interest and demand globally. We're hearing reports of iPhones being used in many countries, so it gives us confidence [in Apple's target of] shipping 10 million [iPhones in calendar-year 2008]." Cook went to far as to suggest that iPhone shortages in U.S. stores are largely due to iPhones being bought for overseas resale.
Digital Arts | Jason Snell | Read more...
CG crabs show the power of small teams
April 23, 2008
Last year we blogged about a music video created by Ryan Bosworth for the outstanding shoegazer band Asobi Seksu, which featured imaginative use of CG origami. The director and VFX artist's latest project is another CG-heavy music video for American indie act Faunts.
The video for the band's track M4 Part II shows one crab defending his sandcastle against other crabs, fighting them off with its claws to remain king of the castle, all the while clutching its flag to show its position (and so you know which of the identical crabs is our hero). We won't give away the end, but it fits perfectly with the band's melancholy sound.
Digital Arts | Neil Bennett | Read more...
Shilo mixtape makes it good
April 23, 2008
Creative collective Shilo has proved that it's DJ talents are up to its design skills by releasing its first downloadable mixtape.
We Make It Good Mix Series Volume 1 is the first in a series of mixes released on the agency's blog, and it's a damn impressive mix of music from around the world – mixing baile funk from Brazil, old school US house, Hindi soundtracks and even some East End dubstep from London.
Digital Arts | Neil Bennett | Read more...
Intel's mash maker: Mashups for the rest of us
April 23, 2008
Mashups -- aggregations of Web data -- can make useful sites even more so, but up to now you had to be a Web developer or programmer to create them. Intel's Mash Maker browser extensions lets even non-technical users create their own custom mashups.
Although Mash Maker team leader Robert Ennals has been blogging about the Firefox version for some time, Intel is announcing Internet Explorer support Tuesday as the Web 2.0 Expo kicks off at San Francisco's Moscone Center. Intel describes the extensions as technology previews, available by invitation only; to get an invitation, you must sign up for an account on the Mash Maker site.
Digital Arts | Yardena Arar | Read more...
Apple and the homebuilt Mac community
April 21, 2008
I recently chronicled my adventures building and using a homebuilt Mac. Now it's time to step back and opine on how I think homebuilt Macs impact Apple's business...
The first question to ask is whether or not Apple should fear the impact these homebuilt Mac enthusiasts may have on their business. Given that one has to start with a collection of parts, assemble those parts into a computer, then work quite diligently to make that computer an OS X-enabled machine, my general answer is "no," Apple need not fear the hobbyist builders.
Digital Arts | Rob Griffiths | Read more...
Teamwork, quick
April 7, 2008
Not content with being digital all week, I signed myself up to more of the same at Social Innovation Camp this weekend. Over 70 designers, developers, managers, entrepreneurs and students were thrown together and charged with creating something of social value in less than 48 hours.
By 2pm Sunday, each team needed to have an idea not just worked out, but built…even live. The winning team walks away with £2,000 whilst the runner up gets £1,000 to further their plans. Modest amounts of course, but money nevertheless to give worthwhile initiatives the start they need.
The Engine Room | Huey Nhan | Read more...
Bugs & Fixes: Can't stop Spotlight
April 7, 2008
Regular readers may have noticed we've had something of a Spotlight theme recently. In that spirit, here's a Spotlight-related trouble I experienced recently.
It all started when I began hearing one of the external drives attached to my Power Mac G5 clicking away incessantly, as it does when some process is actively reading from or writing to the drive. This kept going for about an hour, with the side effect of a gradual slowing down of everything else I was doing.
Digital Arts | Ten Landau | Read more...
Control the new iTunes 10.5 visualizers
April 4, 2008
Among the many new Leopard features are three new iTunes visualizers – Lathe, Jelly, and Stix (choose View -> Visualizer to select a visualizer, then press Command-T to activate the visualizer). Unlike the previous iTunes visualizers, there's no hidden "H for help" feature to show you these visualizers' new tricks. But that doesn't mean they don't have any tricks.
All three of the new visualizers will display an album info overlay when you press I, and you can see the current frame rate by pressing F. If you're using Lathe, that's about it for the special features. Stix has a couple of minor tricks up its sleeve; press the Up Arrow once to add a second (mirror image) stick, and the Down Arrow seems to cycle through a few available speeds. Jelly, though, has the most hidden features. Press the Up or Down Arrow to cycle between seven different jelly styles. If you see one you like, press M to lock it (otherwise iTunes will automatically cycle between all seven styles). When in lock mode, the arrow keys won't do anything; press M again to unlock Jelly, and you can then use the arrow keys again.
Digital Arts | Rob Griffiths | Read more...
Create good queries in Spotlight
April 4, 2008
On the surface, searching with Spotlight is pretty straightforward. In our previous instalment, we covered the basics of using and customizing the Spotlight menu. But if your search involves multiple terms, or if you need to narrow down your results to dig up a particularly elusive file, knowing how to put together a good search query will pay off.
By mastering a few simple tricks, you can limit your search to specific types of data, exclude terms, and more – helping Spotlight locate exactly what you need. and then take you inside some of its lesser know features – including how to use keywords to limit your search to specific dates, authors, or file types.
Digital Arts | Kirk McElhearn | Read more...
Inside the Spotlight menu
April 3, 2008
Spotlight is an indispensable tool for finding anything on your Mac. All you need to do is learn its tricks. In the first part of our Spotlight series we'll give you an overview of the Spotlight menu, including how to customize how results are presented, how to save time with keyboard shortcuts, and how to reboot Spotlight when it misbehaves.
Navigating the Spotlight Menu
Press command-spacebar to open the Spotlight menu. As you type, Spotlight refines your search results. In case you're new to Spotlight, we'll begin with the basics. To start a Spotlight search, click on the magnifying-glass icon on the right side of the menu bar (or press command-spacebar) to call up the Spotlight menu; then type one or more words – you don't have to worry about capitalization. Spotlight immediately starts looking for your search term in your files' names, in their content, and in hidden information called metadata, and it presents the matches it finds. As you type more of the word or phrase, Spotlight refines its results.
Digital Arts | Kirk McElhearn | Read more...
Troubleshooting .Mac iCal syncing
April 3, 2008
Reader Turner Kellogg is unhappy with .Mac's inability to sync his calendars. He writes:
You're on the right track, but you need to take it up a notch. By that I mean that you should try mucking with your .Mac settings on every computer configured to sync its data to .Mac.
Digital Arts | Christopher Breen | Read more...
Five reasons to ditch the Mac and return to PCs
April 2, 2008
Timothy Keanini, chief technology officer of nCircle, loves Mac - just not in his company (a maker of network security and compliance management tools).
Keanini has been both a Mac user and a Mac developer during the past five years. Starting in 2001, he brought Macs into his 100-person company (starting with an Apple G4 notebook for himself) because he believed the user-friendly interface and ability to work in a Unix-like environment would help productivity among the engineering team.
Digital Arts | Robert Lemos | Read more...
HOW TO: Hide Time Machine's icon in the Finder
April 2, 2008
As much as I love Time Machine in OS X 10.5 – I've already used it a number of times to recover from various PEBKAC errors – there's one thing about it that I don't really like: the fact that it's visible in the Finder.
Sure, sometimes it's nice to drill down directly into the drive to find a file, but now that I have months of backups there, that's become quite tedious, so I don't do it very often.
Digital Arts | Rob Griffiths | Read more...
