Embarking on a Redesign 
14 Comments
Sometimes, a restructuring is necessary. Throw out all the old, and bring in the new.
Nintendo Wii! But Why? 18 Comments
Nintendo Revolution has been officially named “Nintendo Wii” (as in “we”). Why?
While the codename “Revolution” expressed our direction, Wii represents the answer.
I’m not happy, but I’m not disappointed either. Wii feels pretty awkward upon first hearing it, but then again, so did the controller.
P.S. I’m getting one.
Caprica: New Battlestar Galactica Spinoff 4 Comments
Sci Fi Channel has announced a new Battlestar Galactica spinoff entitled “Caprica”.
Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high-technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.
But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot: a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the Battlestar Galactica), Caprica will weave together corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television’s first science fiction family saga, the channel announced.
FlashObject Is Now Named SWFObject 7 Comments
Due to Adobe trying to “protect” their Flash trademark, my favourite Flash embed script now formerly known as “FlashObject” has changed its name to “SWFObject”. Update your bookmarks. More on the event.
Fauna Beta 5 2 Comments
Hot off the stove, the free Fauna theme for Wordpress is now in a feature complete Beta 5. My favourite new feature? The re-introduction of Wordpress’ my-hacks.php file in a new and improved form.
Chernobyl: Nuclear Guardian 4 Comments
It seems animal wildlife prefers radiation over humans:
The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is teeming with life. As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return.
British scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock goes on to say:
“I have wondered if the small volumes of nuclear waste from power production should be stored in tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by greedy developers”.
Narnia Mini-Review 4 Comments
The Chronicles Of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe is the huge 2005 book-to-film adaptation of the popular C.S. Lewis book. It tells the story of four children who travel to the magical world of Narnia through a wardrobe in an old manor. In Narnia, they discover they are part of a prophecy to rid that world of the wicked White Witch.
Narnia is very true to the book, which places it firmly with a childrens audience. I’m sure if I was 16 years younger I might give this film 6 hearts for being a magical adventure, but somehow talking animals, Santa Claus and young knights in very bright and shining armor just doesn’t work for an older audience.
Even so, the film is so well made that it deserves at least three hearts just for that. Go see it with your son or daughter, I’m sure they’ll love it.
Thurrott on Vista: What Went Wrong? 7 Comments
Long time Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott vents on the latest Windows Vista beta:
Promises were made. Excitement was generated. None of it, as it turns out, was worth a damn. From a technical standpoint, the version of Windows Vista we will receive is a sad shell of its former self, a shadow. One might still call it a major Windows release. I will, for various reasons. The kernel was rewritten. The graphics subsystem is substantially improved, if a little obviously modeled after that in Mac OS X. Heck, half of the features of Windows Vista seem to have been lifted from Apple’s marketing materials.
I particularly share his sentiment on the glassy windows. I remember my first impression being that it was going to look dumb and messy, but as Paul points out, they have big usability problems as well:
Anyway, the reality of glass windows is that they stink. The windows themselves are translucent, meaning you can see through them partially. But the visual difference between the topmost window (that is, the window with which you are currently interacting, or what we might describe as the window with focus) and any other windows (i.e. those windows that are visually located “under” the topmost window) is subtle at best. More to the point, you can’t tell topmost windows from other windows at all. And don’t pretend you can.
As shown in Pauls screenshots, windows in the plain Windows XP theme will have a lighter shade when not focused.
V for Vendetta Mini-Review 5 Comments
If you want objectivity, go elsewhere. This is a weblog, and I want to be subjective. I absolutely loved V for Vendetta.
V is the codename of a Guy Fawkes-masked freedom fighter (brilliantly played by Hugo Weaving) struggling to overthrow the oppressive regime that England has become.
V for Vendetta is exactly the type of movie I want to see in the cinema. It is well acted, well written, well paced and most of all eminently watchable. I give this film its first 3 hearts for plainly being a good movie, and the remaining two hearts for simply being an extremely enjoyable piece of cinema.
Embarking on a Redesign
CSS3 Property “img:after” in Firefox? 10 Comments
The code is fairly simple: img:after { content: “Hello World”; }. It displays the text “Hello World” right after an image. It works in Opera, but not in Firefox! Why is that? Isn’t Firefox supposed to be the new black?
For those of you pondering the Why of this, try out img:after { content: “(” attr(alt) “)”; } for show. It’ll type out the contents of the ALT attribute after an image.
Extending Wordpress to use “Home” Page as Homepage 9 Comments
For this project I’m doing, I needed an easy way to have a static homepage in my Wordpress installation. I found this fairly simple recipe, that if cooked correctly is mighty tasty. Here are the tools necessary:
Your root directory, / is your static frontpage.
Your subdirectory, in my case /journal/ is your blog.
Wordpress is installed in [...]
Sporkle! New And Improved 7 Comments
Our pet project, Sporkle, has gotten a major facelift and overhaul. All the games are now free, and do not require log in. Go on, try out Bounce - The Game Where You Bounce A Ball™.
Atomic Swing And Their Broken Habanas 
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My little sister kindly alerted me to this most excellent piece of news:
Atomic Swing is releasing the new album “The Broken Habanas” on the 10th of May. The first single is entitled “So Mystifying”.
For those of you who forgot / don’t know who Atomic Swing is, kindly take a listen to their track, Suburban Wing. For those of you who remember, join me in the groove over the coolness of the album title or the fact that the lead singer says the album might sound a bit like Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”.
More info:
- Expressen (Swedish)
- Hufvudstadsbladet (Swedish)
Macs Run Windows Too 6 Comments
More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today.
- Apple Bootcamp (Thanks for the tip, Chris)
