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Sick of iPad news? Check This!

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What’s the Hottest Thing at CeBIT Sydney? the Wiimote SymCar…

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Sample provided by Michael Nace from UNIEA (Twitter and Facebook).

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U-Pouch (Suede) for iPod/iPhone 2G/3G

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It once occurred to me that modern civilization occupies an unstable state. I.J. Good’s hypothesized intelligence explosion describes a dynamically unstable system, like a pen precariously balanced on its tip. If the pen is exactly vertical, it may remain upright; but if the pen tilts even a little from the vertical, gravity pulls it farther in that direction, and the process accelerates. So too would smarter systems have an easier time making themselves smarter.

A dead planet, lifelessly orbiting its star, is also stable. Unlike an intelligence explosion, extinction is not a dynamic attractor – there is a large gap between almost extinct, and extinct. Even so, total extinction is stable.

The essay is called Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk and is certainly an insightful read. Download the PDF from here.

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Sh_rt_05>>Dangers of A.I. by Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic

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Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.

For those unfamiliar to Boxee, it’s a free media center application for Windows, Linux, Mac and Apple TV, based on XBMC.

We’re also going to have a Boxee box to review by the end of Q1 2010. With the Boxee box, you will no longer need to have an Apple TV or a computer to run Boxee to your TV. The Boxee box has HDMI, Optical Audio, RCA Stereo, Audio, WiFi (802.11n), Ethernet, 2 USB Ports, SD Cart Slot, RF Remote and a QWERTY keyboard/remote.

You can follow @boxee for updates.

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Sh_rt_04>>Boxee Beta Available, Greatness Ensues

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Ubuntu desktop by JavierPsilocybin. Click to enlarge.

Get the latest (nightly, alpha, beta) builds of Ubuntu and other Ubuntu based OSs from cdimage.ubuntu.com.

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Sh_rt_03>>cdimage.ubuntu.com

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Click on the album art to open the Last.fm profile for the album.

Phoenix, one of the best albums of 2009, places you somewhere in between The Notwist, Apparat and Kasabian, in a pure indie pop sound delight.

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Sh_rt_02>>Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

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Mac Desktop January 2010 (click to enlarge).

With the Stacks for Downloads, Applications and virtual machines, everything I need is within 1 click. Any folder, when dragged to the dock can become a Stack.

I use a mid-2009 unibody MacBook Pro 13-inch, which has a 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo, 250GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, an LED-backlit keyboard and display, with around 5 hours of battery life doing actual work. I use this machine to write for MakeUseOf and Tux Geek, for school assignments, for listening to music and watching movies.

I removed any icons that I didn’t need - including Mozy status, Time Machine and battery.

I know what you’re thinking. The Tux Geek is nuts, he’s using a 1000£ machine to surf the web.

I need to be able to review applications that run on various Linux distributions (mainly Ubuntu) as well as Windows, so having enough horsepower to run another instance of an OS turns out to be very useful. There’s another advantage to using a virtual machine instead of a dual or triple boot setup – I can easily review operating systems, no need to mess with partitions, boot-loaders and corrupted data. I also very much enjoy taking photos and editing them in Adobe’s Lightroom.

I also need Photoshop on a daily basis for cropping, adjusting and compressing screenshots for articles. And while I do all this, I like to have the possibility of listening to music and having a web browser run at a decent speed. So you see, I do actually benefit from having that extra horsepower. Even if I don’t use it to the max today, it’s future-proof. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Dashboard (click to enlarge).

• For writing short pieces, mostly under 1000 words, I seldom use anything other than TextMate. TextMate is also the prima-ballerina when it comes to writing any kind of code – CSS, C++ or Python – mainly because of its excellent markup capabilities.
• However, I write longer essays and ebooks in Microsoft Word 2008 because of the extended formatting functionality.
• Apple’s Keynote is a must have for anyone who wants to create beautiful presentations in a snap.
• For web browsing I strongly recommend Google Chrome which works incredibly well on the Mac despite its current beta status. It’s fast, minimal and can be themed.
• Adium is by far your best option if you’re looking for a multi-protocol, versatile instant messaging client. It supports all the major protocols and services you could possibly want. Of course, if you’re looking for VOiP, you’ll want to download Skype.
• Backup?! Who needs backup? Apparently I do. I’ve lost data so many times due to partition errors and various misguided experiments that I lost count. I use Wuala to back up my photos and documents to the cloud for free. I also have Mozy running and doing the same thing. In the unlikely case something happens to the data-center of one of the services, I’m in the clear. Am I paranoid? There’s no question about it.

I always keep my desktop clear of any icons and only use it as temporary storage in emergencies. To access removable media, I choose to click on the Finder icon in the Dock instead of having the discs appear on the desktop. To access the preferences, open a Finder window and right click in an empty space of the sidebar.

• Parallels 4 works like a charm with the latest versions of Ubuntu and Vista, and that’s just what I need. It’s a bit expensive but you do get the best performance available.
• Staying true to the faith, I manage my own web-server and thus need a capable FTP client. Cyberduck is free, open source and absolutely great.
• Caffeine keeps the computer from going to sleep when you don’t want it to. I wind up using this little app more than I thought at first. It’s free and comes in handy.
• ShoveBox, another permanent resident in the Finder bar, is a fantastic little app that can store snippets of information you need to remember but don’t need right now. I use it to store little bits of text and bookmarks when researching articles. It can also store photos and files.

The dock is hidden when not in use and has a magnification effect when in focus.

• Transmission is the best bit torrent client on the Mac and a trusty companion when you visit the pirate bays, with its integrated IP blacklist feature, great UI and performance.
• The Unarchiver handles all your RAR and ZIP needs without the overhead of Stuffit Expander. Double-click to de-archive, that’s all it does.
• TuneUp Companion fixes your music tags and automatically adds cover art.
• I also use Perian (handles 99% of audio/video codecs), Twitterrific, Last.fm and Appfresh (updates your software). iStat Pro monitors various system indicators within the Dashboard. For my limited scheduling needs, iCal suffices. And lastly, NTFS 3G ensures I can mount, swap and write to NTFS volumes.

I also have a 1st generation iPod touch which I absolutely love, and a Microsoft Arc notebook mouse. While its design is so beautiful it’s uncharacteristic of Microsoft, it sometimes disconnects for no apparent reason. Battery life is somewhere around 2 months and it is very accurate even on glossy surfaces. It works on the Mac without drivers – unlike Apple’s own Magic Mouse. The only major downside is the wireless dongle – which blocks one USB port.

For articles larger than 1500+ words I usually pull out the low-end Microsoft ergonomic keyboard from the closet. Nothing fancy, but it is a lot more comfortable than the integrated keyboard.

I’d like to give a warm plug to MinimalMac, SimpleDesktops, and Prettify, sites which will guide you on the path of minimal geek nirvana.

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What I Believe In

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Who said you couldn’t terminate a C++ variable declaration with a coma?

idsgn.org is a design blog with some great content about branding, typography, and of course graphic design.

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Sh_rt_01>>idsgn.org

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In a sea of good, how do you pick the best?

I would first look at the general look and feel of the blog. Is it logically organised? Are the topics clearly delineated? Is the design eye and user friendly? Does it cater to people that are potential buyers? I would also check for grammar, spelling and clarity of language. Is the content original? Does the blog use a regular posting schedule? Is the reader base stable, or does it spike for just a few of the articles?

I’d like to think that Tux Geek scores well on all points except maybe at the  regular post schedule. I personally consider that writing an interesting article is more important than sticking to a rigid schedule.

Is popularity a measure of value? I’ve had articles that had many thousands of pageviews and articles with mere hundreds. The ones that made it to sites like Digg and Reddit aren’t necessarily what I consider to be the best. They aren’t necessarily the most well written either. I wish I could say it’s one way or the other, but I really can’t make up my mind.

As a boutique ad agency, Fusion Ads has to hand pick sites for its closed publishing network. Although small in comparison to other more conventional ad agencies, they feature some great sites like note&point. Chris Bowler, ‘the man behind the curtain’ shares some of his insight into the matter of perceived value:

We receive about ten times as many requests as we could ever accept. The idea of a boutique ad agency means that we simply cannot grow for the sake of growth. We would lose the things that give us our value: quality and relevancy. Add too many sites and suddenly you have to earn a lot more revenue. In order to do that, you have to start accepting advertisers that don’t meet your standards.

And then you are on the slippery slope to where your users/readers view you like all the other advertisers — in a poor light.

A big part of accepting a site is whether or not we’ve heard of it. We can make a much quicker decision if we’re familiar with author (and therefore some of the items you mention in your article: post regularity, quality of writing, subject matter). If we are not familiar with the site, than we take a quick look around.

And to be perfectly honest, we can often disregard a site in 20-30 seconds. If the overall look and feel of the site is not aesthetically pleasing or does not speak “quality”, than it’s safe to say that the overall quality of the body of work is poor. But if the design looks clean and the content looks like it fits with our audience, we’ll dig deeper.

The last thing we look for is sphere of influence. Seeing as our model is more cost-per-influence (stealing this term from the Deck) rather than cost per click, it makes sense that we look for industry leaders. How many twitter followers does this person have? Who are their followers? Are they respected in the design/development community?

If we can answer some of these questions, then the decision is easier.

Overall, because we get such a high volume of requests, the answer is “no, but thanks” 90% of the time. But I tell people this: the best way to get an invitation to be on our network is to produce great work. You’ll get noticed if you focus on that.

— Chris Bowler, Fusion Ads @ 05/01/2010

I can say that the review model is sound from my point of view, and I hope we learn something from it. Ultimately, it’s the reader who measures value. What’s the most important thing for you?

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The Value Of Blogging

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