Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Pixelmator

Pixelmator looks like a possible Photoshop competitor with a pretty slick UI and is based on Apple’s Core Image technology. It’s supposed to take advantage of GPU-powered image editing, so your video card can handles some of the processing and frees up your CPU for other tasks. It doesn’t look like it will be available until late July 2006, but with a $59 price tag, it could be hard to pass up. We’ll have to see how it compares to Photoshop CS3, though it looks they share many comparable features. (via Daring Fireball)

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface looks pretty amazing, not only the technoology, but their site as well has a great interactive feel. I’d be impressed seeing a multi-touch display like this in restaurants or other areas as demonstrated in the videos, but I doubt this would be inexpensive. I’d expect to see something like this in some high-end or expensive places.

This isn’t the first time I’m seen something like this, the demos from Jeff Han blew me away last year and earlier this year everyone saw the iPhone demos as well. I don’t think the question is which company will perfect this first, I think the question is how much will new technologies like this impact our lives? Twenty years from now we could all be taking this for granted.

Running Multiple Internet Explorers’s with Tredosoft & Virtual PC

Running multiple Internet Explorer versions on one system used to be a bit unreliable and offer some problems for web developers that need to ensure cross-browser compatibility. Thankfully there are a couple options, one from Tredosoft another from Microsoft.

What Do I Know recently touched on Tredosoft’s Multiple IE, which allows you to install IE 6 through IE 3, while allowing Internet Explorer 7 to remain untouched on your system. This is a great aid, something I’ve been using for a few months thanks to a recommendation from a friend. Tredosoft’s solution is much more stable than the archived browsers from Evolt.org, and they seem to run pretty well at the same time if you need to check 2 or 3 browsers at once. I haven’t tried this with Parallels, but I’ve heard it runs well this way, I do know that this isn’t compatible with Vista yet, which would be nice. I have noticed a slight tendency for IE6 to crash and/or incorrectly render some pages, which brings me to my next recommendation.

The other option is to download Virtual PC 2007, which looks like it’s Vista compatible, and the IE Application Compatibility VPC Image, which is a small Virtual PC image with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. In my opinion, this way is a little more involved, but I’ve seen pretty accurate results on IE6 when compared to an acutal PC running IE6.

Take a look at both options, they seem to work well for me. Though I’m not running Windows XP or Vista on my laptop yet, I have a late model Powerbook so no Boot Camp or Parallels, I plan on picking up a Macbook Pro after the next revision and finally be able to run OS X, XP, Vista and possibly a Linux distribution to become more familiar with Linux systems for a pretty solid web development testing environment,

Ye Olde Metal Days

A great collection of photos of heavy metal bands from the early 80’s on Flickr. Looks like most of these were shot at shows, a nice slice of metal history. (via Kottke)

4th Annual Magic of Memories Dinner

Magic of Memories Logo

I attended the 4th Annual Magic of Memories Dinner on April 28th, 2007 with my good friend Angela Cronk. In November of last year, Angela asked if I’d be interested in helping design the logo, in-store posters and invitations for the Magic of Memories fundraising campaign. The campaign’s goal was to raise money with Paul Mitchell the School and benefits Leeza’s Place, The Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation, and Vidal Sassoon’s Hairdressers Unlocking Hope on behalf of Habitat for Humanity.

It was a honor to have been involved in this project, and to have been invited to the dinner as well. It took place at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach, and was hosted by Leeza Gibbons and Winn Claybaugh. Representatives from each organization spoke about their involvement, what they benefit and followed with a video presentation for the audience as well.

Mike Helm, from The Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation spoke about Andrew Gomez, a student who tragically took his own life during personal hardships, the goal of their organization is to provide help to those in need, much like Andrew did during his own lifetime.

Leeza Gibbons and Dr. James Huysman spoke about The Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation, which was started to benefit caregivers and families of individuals with declining mental health. Leeza Gibbons’ own mother suffered from Alzhiemers disease before she passed away and now she is calling attention to millions of families, like her’s, that know the frustration and heartache of memory disorders. It was an honor, and humbling, to meet Ms. Gibbons and be personally thanked for my involvement in the project.

Vidal Sassoon spoke about Hairdressers Unlocking Hope, which is an organization that is working with Habitat for Humanity to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina by rebuilding New Orleans. He painted the picture of his own upbringing and life story of being an orphan and homeless in London during World War II and now is working to prevent others from suffering from homelessness as he once did. Mr. Sassoon gave a very passionaite and moving speech.

I was a great experince to have worked with these organizations and have attended the dinner, I applaud them for what they’re doing to give back to the community and those in need. I recently updated my portfolio with examples of the work that I contributed to this project, which can be viewed here.