The unboxing process was nice enough but I wasn’t nearly as excited about this iPhone as I had been about the 3G, mainly because I didn’t expect this transition to be nearly as drastic. I was both right and wrong about this, in a good way, so let’s break it down:

Design

This – THIS – is what an iPhone should look like. I liked the original aluminum iPhone, and very much disliked the glossy plastic 3G and 3GS so this new design is a very welcome change.

Unsurprisingly, it feels great to hold – Apple has few peers in this area. In recent history their influence over competitors’ designs is somewhat obvious, but photos can’t portray just how big the difference in build quality is. At the risk of stepping into fanboy territory, it’s often the difference between buying a gadget and a functional work of art.

Interestingly, I did run up against what is mostly a psychological problem when setting the phone down. In a situation where I’m about to put the phone on a desk or other flat surface, I’d tend to hold it with my thumb on the left, four fingers on the right, and the screen facing up. The curved back of the iPhone 3G meant that the back of the phone would make contact before my fingers, so I could then release. The flat back of the iPhone 4 results in the opposite, meaning I either have to reposition my fingers or “drop” it slightly. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an issue as it doesn’t result in any harm to the phone; it’s just an oddity.

Experience

I found the initial startup to be a little underwhelming, actually. I think there was a lot of buildup for the Retina display and at first I didn’t notice a tremendous improvement. It is definitely nicer – a little whiter and a lot sharper, but it’s something that requires a slightly closer look for me to really appreciate. Where the difference is most pronounced for me is the app icons, as some of them are still formatted only for the old resolution and are quite grainy as a result.

What I wasn’t expecting was for the increase in performance to be so noticeable. Everything is significantly faster than on my old phone, but for me the two most useful instances of this are:

1. The camera. It still takes a couple seconds to launch, but shutter actuation is much, much faster. It could still benefit from a bigger lens, but so could every camera ever made.
2. Wifi. Locking the iPhone 3G would result in a loss of wifi (understandable), but it would take its sweet time reconnecting when unlocked. Not so with the iPhone 4, which retains a wifi connection even while locked (presumably for short periods of time) or reconnects almost instantly when unlocked.

The wifi in particular is an example of what Apple does well: continually refining things that were already okay until they’re great. The 3G’s wifi performance was a little annoying at times, but it wasn’t a situation where identical behavior from the iPhone 4 would’ve prevented a purchase. The newfound responsiveness has been particularly useful when using Touchpad, the remote app for our Windows Media PC.

Gripes

I may be a fanboy, but I’m not so rabid as to admit that Apple’s devices don’t have their flaws. In this case, though, I think the nits I have to pick are mainly software-based except for two, both of which are self-explanatory:

1. More storage is always better.
2. The camera could be better still.

Even iOS 4 is pretty solid, in that it would take me a fair amount of time to remember and compile any of the complaints I would’ve had. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is with Apple’s implementation of Facetime. I certainly understand their reasoning for putting it front and center within the in-call menu, but they did so at the expense of the hold button. This resulted in a panic when I tried to put a call on hold the first time, and the end result was not pretty.

There’s been some coverage of this already, with the “official” response from Apple being that hold is just a glorified mute button. I get that, and now that I realize there even is a mute button I find myself a bit less peeved by the whole thing. The obvious question becomes: why did the two exist in the first place?

Also, I guess they’re having antenna problems or something? I wouldn’t really know as I haven’t experienced any.

And finally, still no 3G around here. Just go suck a dick, AT&T – you guys are terrible. On that note, though, I am now on the new DataPlus plan so I don’t feel like I’m being totally robbed every month. I guess that’s an advantage.

As I become more familiar with it, it’s easier for me to see what it’s capable of (hint: everything), and as a result I started thinking about a redesign of this blog in an effort to completely and utterly abuse integrate some of those capabilities. As work progressed, I realized there were some other bullet points I’ve been wanting to hit as well. Here’s the laundry list:

JQuery

Like I said. In this case I’m using it mainly for the archive dropdown and the endless scrolling on listing pages. I played with some concepts that involved more horizontal scrolling, but decided to ultimately go a different direction.

Grids

I’ve been basing the various iterations of this blog off of grids for a long time, but this is the first time in awhile where said grid hasn’t been dictated by Flickr. In this case I decided to try a 960 grid system and ended up using a 16 column grid here, with each column equaling 50px with a 10px gutter. I used this CSS generator to develop the initial CSS.

I’m debating whether I’d use this technique if I were to do it all again as I had a couple of hangups with the process:

• I didn’t love the naming conventions for the various classes; I ended up replacing all the underscores with dashes because that’s what I’ve become accustomed to using in my CSS.
• The system falters somewhat if you’re floating multiple blocks inside of a larger block (for example, three .grid-3‘s in a .grid-9. You need to add .omega (to remove the right margin) to the last block in the line, which doesn’t bode particularly well for dynamically-generated content.
• It seems like an excessive amount of markup in general. Then again, I suppose that comes with the territory in a system that’s attempting to be somewhat universal.

Dynamic Stylesheets

I’ve been wanting to experiment with adding constants to my CSS files for some time now. One way of doing this is with LESS, a Ruby gem (also available as a WordPress plugin, thankfully). LESS basically allows you to define constants and nest classes within your stylesheets, which is a tremendously useful concept.

But in short, I hated it. I attribute part of this to the fact that I had already been messing with PHP as a way to dynamicize my CSS, but the LESS system ended up being a little too clunky for me to find useful:

• LESS does math, and that’s great. Except when it tries to divide my shorthand font declarations, and as a result the entire CSS becomes null and void.
• It seems that commas are no less of a hurdle, as I found LESS to stumble when I was trying to define the same set of properties for two different elements.
• As I mentioned, any issue with syntax will cause the entire stylesheet to be totally dysfunctional with no indication of what the problem is.

I ended including the CSS in PHP form, which has functioned in a much more predictable manner.

Color Editing

This is the third version of mine to feature theme-editable colors. In this case, though, I ended up going a slightly different route. I had been using a variation of the functions.php file from the old default Kubrick theme, which writes custom CSS in the header of the HTML to define the chosen color. Instead of that, I decided to make use of my newly-created PHP CSS and pass that new color to the CSS via a URL variable. Much cleaner.

In addition, I decided to make light and dark stylesheets from the get-go, which I can also switch from the admin.

Mobile Friendly(ish)

I’ve been watching with interest the recent developments in “responsive web design”. As such I decided to define an alternate version of the site for mobile devices and viewports smaller than the width of the normal site. It’s an early effort, but I’m pleased with it for now and like the rest of these points, it’s experience that I can carry forward to future projects.

And More Less

From a content standpoint, I really wanted to simplify my own presentation of myself. I decided to eliminate the “about” page for the first time in basically ever, opting instead to let my various (side) projects and social networks do the talking.

From a contact standpoint, you may notice that the comment form is no more. Existing comments have been preserved, but the ability to comment has been disabled (for now, at least). Same goes for the contact form, for similar reasons: anybody who wants to discuss an article or get in touch is someone I likely already talk to on a regular basis (or someone I would talk to). I get the whole public discourse thing, believe me, but that happens so rarely here that I felt it was no longer worth the inclusion.

So that’s it! Let me know what you think OH WAIT YOU CAN’T.

• 940×640 HIGH-REZ “Retina” IPS display
• Front and rear cameras with flash and HD video recording
• A4 processor (like such as the one found in the iPad!)
• FaceTime video chat over wi-fi
• All-new (albeit unsurprising) industrial metal and glass case design

So basically, it’s everything that we all knew was coming, yet the fact that it is official and will be here soon (and on my half-birthday!) is no less exciting. It’s a home run in just about every way; I’m especially excited about the new optics. My entire list of gripes can be summed up thusly:

• Storage tops out at 32GB.

Given that iPhones have a tendency to catch up with the prior year’s iPod touch in terms of storage I didn’t think it was too far-fetched to expect the iPhone 4 in 32 GB and 64 GB flavors; instead they’ll remain the same as the 3GS which means they still can’t accommodate my entire music library (which currently weighs in at nearly 47 GB for those curious). But it’s a small sacrifice; I’ll be the first to admit that at least half of my library should never be listened to again, ever.

But the phone is just the first third of an all-important trifecta. There was a fair amount of talk about iOS 4 (formerly iPhone OS 4) as well; the iPhone demoed was clearly running that software which leaves me to assume that the new phones will ship with it later this month. I’m curious as to how that will shake out regarding the iOS 4 update for the current crop of devices.

And finally, AT&T may have actually made a decision that works out in my favor for once. Last week they announced a restructuring of their data plans for all smartphones, eliminating the $30 unlimited plan and replacing it with two new variations:

1. The “DataPro” plan gives you 2 GB of data per month for $25, with each additional 1 GB costing $10
2. The “DataPlus” plan gives you 200 MB of data per month for $15, with each additional 200 MB costing $15

It was difficult to determine how good of a deal this ended up being without first consulting my own usage records; as it turns out it’s rare for me to even come close to 200 MB per month. As a result, I think I’ll be able to safely downgrade to the DataPlus plan and easily knock $15 off of my current bill (and as I’ve mentioned before, price per month is much more important to me than buy-in price). And on rare occasions where I exceed that bandwidth, I’m still only paying what I was before, which is a fine compromise.

All things considered, I’m pretty pleased with this most recent round of iPhone news.

Similarly, Bioshock is a great game. If you wanted, you could call it innovative simply because it was a first person shooter in 2007 that didn’t have you fighting aliens or Nazis. But beyond that, Bioshock furthered gamers’ assertions that games could indeed be art. The plot, while still dependent on you fighting your way through… things… was refreshing in the context of this beautifully creepy underwater world. And, like The Matrix, Bioshock has that single moment of clarity in which the jarring reality of things completely blows your mind.

Of course, it could also be argued that Bioshock didn’t need a sequel. And I agree; the game is a work of art that begins and resolves an interesting story, and I would’ve been content with that. But 2K didn’t agree, and so Bioshock 2 is upon us. Like many jaded gamers, years of Tony Hawks and Call of Dutys have made it clear that not all sequels are good sequels. And when I first sat down to play this new installment, it was with much skepticism.

(I could go on an entirely different rant here about how reading reviews and previews of games can drastically and irreversibly alter someone’s opinion of them for better or worse, but I will save that. For now.)

Suffice it to say, I had been reading a lot of reviews of Bioshock 2 because I was genuinely looking for an excuse to skip it. Reading reviews is not something I do for games that I know I want to play, for reasons stated above. But the reviews all played the same tune: yes, Bioshock didn’t need a sequel, but here is one, and it’s pretty good, so get over it.

And they’re right. Unlike the rest of The Matrix trilogy, this new Bioshock turns out to be a lot of fun for those of us who enjoyed Rapture the first go-round. While it would’ve been impossible to do anything but put you in the (very heavy) shoes of a new protagonist, the strategy works. You get to experience some things that are only made possible by who you are in this game, and another layer of the Rapture saga is revealed as well.

All in all, it comes down to this: the original game is so highly-regarded partially because there was a certain novelty about it. That the second installment is enjoyable and interesting even now that that novelty has worn off speaks volumes about how ripe the setting and gameplay are for further exploration.

The thing with the Milwaukee show is that it was put on by the car dealers of Milwaukee, so the exhibits were limited to whatever cars they had on hand (which were admittedly nice), and anything above and beyond that could only be considered a favor from the manufacturer (like such as a concept car that’s already made its rounds to the “big” shows).

I returned there as an adult (debatably), and while it was still enjoyable, I decided next year it would be worth the extra time to check out the Chicago Auto Show – a “real” industry event that takes place around the same time, but where manufacturers are happy to spend all kinds of money to get you take a second look at their offerings.

2010 marks the first year I’ve made it back to the show (or Chicago, sadly) since 2006, as life and general apathy seem to have gotten in the way in the successive years. But finally, finally I committed to getting back down there, and had a great time in the city, only a minor part of which was spent at the auto show itself.

Notable Inclusions

I don’t know that there were any cars that I was genuinely surprised to see there. Perhaps the Fiat 500, since it’s a car not (yet) sold here. Same goes for the Equus, the new top dog from Hyundai. I was happy to see the new Mercedes SLS and Lexus LF-A in the flesh, since they’re both cars that will probably never see the likes of Wausau. Fisker made a welcome appearance, as did the Lotus Evora and a pair of Lamborghinis.

Notable Exclusions

Saab was missing, which was disappointing but not a huge surprise given the turbulence of the brand lately. I was really hoping to see the new 9-5 and 9-4x but I guess I’ll have to wait for them to recombobulate themselves. Also notably absent was Porsche (although it was represented by a local dealer so I did finally get to see the Panamera) and other high-dollar offerings like Bentley and Ferrari. Edit: also Tesla.

Best Display

My first instinct is to give this one to Audi, since they decided to make all of their cars the same color (and it’s my favorite color). Scion also had a strong showing despite not having any interesting cars. In terms of the vehicles themselves, though, it’s hard not to like Ford. Between the 2011 Mustangs, the Fiesta, the new Focus (finally), the Taurus, the Raptor, and their myriad of other great vehicles, it’s hard not to have a lot of hope for the American auto industry.

Worst Display

While there were a fair number of merely average displays, only a few qualify as completely phoned in. The Fiat display was nothing to write home about: two cars and two models, roped off from the general public. All four were boring. The Maserati wasn’t much better; it just sat there lonesomely on its turntable, surrounded by Fiats and Chryslers. Honorable mention goes to Land Rover for leaving all of their cars locked (dicks!).

Best of Show

Despite the recession, there were a lot of great cars this year. The SLS is certainly a looker, and I was actually really excited about the Toyota FT-CH concept (NERD!) because it embodies everything I want to see in the future of day-to-day cars: creative design elements, smart packaging, and an efficient powerplant.

Worst Place

Again, there was a lot of good, and a lot of average, and very little that was just unequivocally bad. But there was one car there I could never, ever, EVER spend money on, and that would be the smart. Completely useless in pretty much every way, and to add insult to injury, it’s way overpriced. It’s like a MINI with none of the fun or practicality. Worst concept goes to the Chrysler Lancia Delta… thing. As Autoblog said so eloquently:

You are looking at… well, no one at the Chrysler booth seemed to know exactly what this is. They didn’t even have a proper name for it.

And it’s true. It was just… there, the wallflower of the Chrysler display. It wanted our attention but nobody could say why it deserved it.

The year started strong. January didn’t bring the same drama this year that it brought in 2008 (thankfully). Instead, I get to point out that that was the birth of the current iteration of this website.

February was relatively uneventful as well, aside from preparing for shows. But I did put together some awesome LEGO.

I spent a lot of time complaining about the weather this year, as I was already raring to get back on two wheels when March rolled around. That was only exacerbated by the new toy. The day trip to Minneapolis to pick it up was awfully fun too.

In April I put new wheels on my car. No, I mean I put them on. By myself.

May brought the first of a number of shows last year: The Last 5 Years, in which I was approximately 50% of the cast. It was a great experience and the theatrical accomplishment that I continue to be most proud of.

Then Godspell happened in June, and that was awesome too! Great cast, great technical staff, great venue, and a great show. Probably one of WCT‘s best, ever.

Things wound down a bit in July, but we had the official Godspell reunion / cast party up in Tomahawk. AKA Real World: Godspell. TEXT MESSAGES!

August was a quiet month, so I spent a lot of time on the bike, and did my first (and second!) 40-mile ride(s).

After years of planning and months of labor, Citizen Wausau 2.0 was finally launched in September, much to the excitement of those involved.

In October, I ran.

The only potentially negative item on the list happened in November, when I passed out on stage. Even then, it’s just something that happened, but I don’t think of it as being decidedly “bad”.

I had such a great vacation in December, you guys. Seriously, it was wonderful. Plus it was my birthday!

We played through the first world last night, and looking back I think I enjoyed it. The game looks great, and we did a decent job of remaining alive (a definite plus) and so I hope that trend continues. Similar to 2006′s New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS, this game is a spiritual successor Super Mario Bros. 3 from the NES days. A prime choice; I consider SMB3 to be the pinnacle of Mario side-scrollers. So all is great, right? Well… no. While the game in and of itself has a lot of potential, there were also some attributes that really felt detrimental to the whole experience.

The big news in NSMBW is that you can play with up to four people simultaneously – no waiting for your turn; everybody’s on the screen, all the time. Except when they’re not. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to find themselves scrolled right off the screen, which can be overcome but may also result in death if they’re beyond the threshold of what the game decides is “safe”. Fortunately, the deceased player will quickly return in a bubble that you need to pop to get them back into the action (imagine Baby Mario in the Yoshi’s Island series).

Player interaction is another iffy item. For better or worse, your characters cannot all occupy the same space at the same time. This becomes problematic when two overzealous teammates decide to tackle the same obstacle simultaneously and instead end up as obstacles themselves. You can overcome this by constantly trying to call out your plans (“okay, now I’m going to jump on this Koopa”) but that seems like a strange thing to need to do for what should be a relatively casual experience. At the same time, it really does add to the atmosphere of the game and make it more interesting.

The biggest problem with this game, though, is where it is. My opinion is and always will be that the Wii platform is a hinderance to “normal” games. The controllers suck, not only in a physical sense but in an “it takes me 5-10 minutes to even get them to work” sense. By the time I’ve gotten the console to function I’m already beginning a game with a feeling of disappointment. Maybe it’s a repetitive fluke (oxymoron?), but how can Nintendo expect the console to appeal to non-techy casual gaming types when they can’t reliably sync their controllers to their consoles?

And while I realize that motion control is the Wii’s bread and butter at the moment, I think it’s ridiculous that they feel obligated to tack it on to every game just because it’s there. Making the game rely on motion control means that we are stuck with the basic Wiimote turned sideways (ugh, just like Super Paper Mario) instead of being able to use a Gamecube controller, the Wiimote/nunchuk combo, or the classic controller.

And that interface! Still so terrible.

Well, the show ran at the end of April/beginning of May and went absolutely great. We got so many compliments, and the Jefferson Street Inn totally delivered as a venue – seriously some of the nicest staff ever (thanks for the cookies). Shortly thereafter… actually, that’s not accurate; while L5Y rehearsals were going on, auditions and rehearsals for Godspell also started. I’m not going to go into details here with regards to the story of the show (uh – the bible, basically), but I will say that there were a couple weeks in April in May where I found myself totally overwhelmed with the prospect of a) working on two shows at once and b) catching up on the second show after the first show wrapped. There were some rough nights as I struggled to pick up choreography that I was absent for, and to experience that bond that actors get after they’ve been seeing eachother on a daily basis for 3 weeks in a row.

As June rolled around I was still stressed but starting to feel better about things. As though I didn’t have enough going on, I also was trying to squeeze in a daily bike ride and manage the graphic design for the show, which required not only materials for Godspell “the show” but also the imaginary band we created – but I digress.

Because both shows are so great, Abe jumped at the opportunity to direct both of them, leaving him in basically the same boat as me. His vision for Godspell (an interesting attribute of this show in particular is that it can really be set where ever you want, as long as it involves people coming together and forming a friendship) was that it would take place after a massive rock show at the Grand Theater. Thus, the setting for the show could remain as it had been during the concert, and the actors are “fans” of the band that have hidden away in the theater and snuck back on stage after the crowd departs.

So if you’re going to have a rock show, and fans, you need a band. Thus, The Almighty was born. And with the Almighty came posters, CD covers, and T-shirts, plus a generic graphic that could be easily applied to other items.

End digression. Anyway, so yeah, as if being stressed about acting weren’t enough, I was also stressed about the identity for this imaginary band. But in the end, everything clicked.

It would not be a lie to say that this is the most amazing show I’ve ever been apart of. I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of my stage experiences, but this one in particular stood out as the perfect storm of really great material, a strong and original vision, and a cast and crew who came together to produce what we’ve been told over and over is one of the best theatrical experiences they’ve had in a very long time. I really want to thank everyone who had a part in it, because everybody gave it their all and it shows.

I think everyone has their own way of deciding whether a particular performance was strong – I definitely reflect on my own contributions and try to determine what needs to be adjusted. But I also really enjoy trying to read the audience. I suspected we had a winner when there was screaming (of joy, obviously) after the first big song. I knew we had a winner when the standing ovations were immediate, every time. If you’ve ever been to a play, you know what I mean. Sometimes the audience won’t stand at all, or will stand reluctantly and gradually because a couple overly enthusiastic people jumped up right away. That was not the case here. As we lined up on stage, before we even got a chance to bow, butts were out of seats.

And now I’m thinking about it and feeling a little sad. I’m so proud of what we were able to put together. I mean, I’m really proud of my work in Last 5 Years, especially the singing that high, that much for 6 shows and not losing my voice part. But like I said, Godspell was a perfect storm. Of awesome.

Copy and paste is a welcome addition, obviously, as is MMS for those that actually use those. The additional calendar protocols are nice to see, although Google Sync addressed that issue a month ago. I don’t know how useful Spotlight will be, as I don’t think I have a lot of things that I have lost on my phone, but it will be fun to mess with.

But two features stood out and have me eagerly awaiting the magical summer day when I plug my phone into iTunes, and after it stalls and I have to restart it one or two times, I can finally download iPhone OS 3.0:

• Landscape Mode for Mail, Messaging, and Notes
  Just, seriously, duh. I never really understood why Safari was the only app to make use of the big horizontal keyboard; especially since that is not where a typical person would be doing the brunt of their typing. So I am really glad to see that option proliferate to the other apps that badly need it.
• Note Syncing
  Assuming this is implemented well, I am excited about it. I don’t use a ton of notes, but I really like the option to sync them from my computer. Now that I think about it though, a wireless sync would be even more useful than having to deal with iTunes just to update my grocery list. Oh well, we’ll see.

All in all, though, I can’t complain too much because it’s all free and it only makes the iPhone better.

However, there are some decisions that can be subjectively classified as missteps on their part. The new iPod shuffle is a demonstration that maybe not having any controls on the device is an idea that should’ve remained on the drawing board. I can’t say for sure as I haven’t played with one (and probably never will), but most of the complaints I’ve heard thusfar have centered around the decision to take the controls off of the device and make them part of the component that you’re more likely to replace or lose (the headphones). I don’t disagree with that particular sentiment, as having to carry specialized headphones for two different devices (iPhone and shuffle) is a concept that seems vaguely, uh, mentally deficient.

The one-button mouse, while an Apple icon, is another great example of their overzealousness for simplicity. The Mighty Mouse is a drastic improvement in terms of functionality, but only when you compare it to their previous offerings. Beyond that, it doesn’t offer much that can’t be found in even the cheapest optical scroll mouse. The scroll ball is nice – until it stops working, as it has now in every Mighty Mouse I’ve owned.

But the device where the button shortage bothers me the most is the iPhone. I pretty much despise the whole “slide to do whatever” mechanic – I would love to have the option to turn that off and just use some combination of the hardware buttons to bypass it. I’d even be fine if they used the Accept/Decline buttons that are present when the phone receives a call while unlocked. I don’t enjoy sliding my fingers around the screen for no reason; especially when it’s in an attempt to accomplish something that’s more easily achieved by pressing a button.

And that’s the crux of the matter. There’s no question that Apple makes some amazing products, but sometimes it seems they favor perceived simplicity to actual simplicity.

Comparing the launch version to version 13 before it, it’s not hard to see what I felt was working and what wasn’t. A good portion of the content styles and graphic elements made it to the new site unscathed, while dropping the heavy-handed and overly divided feel of the previous design.

The Grid

Version 14′s major defining element was the grid based entirely on the Flickr photos at the top. Initial versions had nine 75px columns separated by 5px alleys, and in November 2008 I added a tenth. While it’s not a new thing for me to have grids defined by the size of my images (as evident in all of my site designs back when this was purely a photoblog), this was the first time I gave myself more than four columns to play with, and I really enjoyed that flexibility. I think the layout worked even better on pages where the Flickr photos weren’t visible; there was still a strong sense of grid and organization, but without the obvious indication of where it was all coming from.

Content Separation

The other major stylistic decision was the way status/blip/link posts were presented when compared to the regular journal entries. After experimenting with different options I ended up with the meta for the posts in the center column, while short posts would live on the right and full posts on the left. It worked best when it was populated evenly, but there were many times where compulsive Twittering would leave the home page entirely empty on the left column.

Then & Now

So how does this newest version compare to the outgoing iteration? You can see that while I haven’t done much with it yet, the grid concept remains intact.

In terms of visual carryover, though, that’s about it. The overall look of the new site was influenced heavily by those wallpapers I just did and my portfolio. I continue to use Helvetica for the headers, but I’ve moved back to Lucida for the body copy, which harkens all the way back to Version 8.x, as ever since then I’d pretty much used Helvetica for everything.

The dotted lines, which I have dearly loved for a very long time, are hanging on by a thread. Because I’m not using a white on white on white layout this time around, everything is divided by blocks of color and shading, which means borders as a whole just aren’t necessary.

Finally, the Status/Twitter posts have become the foremost bit of information on the new site, with Flickr taking the slot below that and the Journal even further down. This just seemed like the only way it could work, organizationally. I didn’t feel that the Flickr content was deserving of the most prominent spot on the page, and the Journal couldn’t be at the top simply because of length. As-is, most visitors should see all three sections when they visit and be inclined to scroll down. Or everybody reads this in RSS, in which case it doesn’t matter anyway.

All that said, I’m quite happy with this latest version, and I’m most interested to see what it evolves into as time progresses.

Which is a good thing, because that means I can save all the complaining for whatever that crap is that I see every time I power on the Wii. Honestly – Nintendo can do product design. They can do packaging. Even the DS GUI isn’t bad. So how did the crapshoot that is the Wii dashboard even happen?

I admit, this started out as some sort of diatribe but turned into an excuse to play with FancyZoom.

But after spending a couple of days with the new dash it’s safe to say that it’s a solid improvement over what was there before, both visually and functionally. They took a page from Sony in terms of an overall metaphor – both the NXE and Sony’s dash, the Xross Media Bar (XMB), use one axis for your main navigation and the other for sub navigation. That’s pretty much where the similarities end, as the PS3′s nav stretches horizontally across the screen while the 360′s scrolls vertically.

They both seem to operate in a reasonably snappy fashion – there was a bit of slowness (mostly in the marketplace) when the NXE launched, but now it performs at a speed that feels faster than the original. Even better, it doesn’t feel like an afterthought anymore. It’s clearly intended as part of the dashboard instead of feeling like an added application on the PS3. It matches everything around it and makes great use of the new interface.

But what about the other content? The NXE presents the information in big bold boxes, so there’s rarely any guesswork to be had as far as what exactly you’re getting into. The information is the hero, and it’s provided in easy-to-read type on a pretty blue gradient. It also just seems to relish the ability to give you that information. Sony opts to use small, monochromatic icons for most functions, which doesn’t really hinder anything, but it doesn’t really make things easier to find either; I sense that most either rely on labels or memorize the icons that they most frequently use. It’s kind of like comparing Web 2.0-style information delivery to that of a 1337 Flash Developer from the early 2000′s.

While that my sound like an insult, I think it’s just very indicative of Sony’s style of doing things. They’re giving you an icon and a title; consider it a bonus if you get more information than that as it would be an aesthetic sacrifice to do so. Microsoft clearly doesn’t think that way, and never has. Their information delivery has always been dictated by space on the 360, and now they’ve given themselves much more flexibility in that regard.

All in all, I think Microsoft hit it out of the park here, and has the best dashboard experience of any console.

To be a designer all you need to have is no talent. Stop and think about that for a second. How many terrible designers do you know? People that have no artistic skill whatsoever but still manage to extract the dollars from desperate clients who don’t know that there’s a better act just down the street.

Near the end of the show, the daughter has accepted stripping and become quite famous for it. She makes a statement during her act about being an “ecdysiast”, or one who sheds its skin, and exclaiming that “at these prices, I’m not a stripper; I’m an ecdysiast!”

With that in mind, there are plenty of truly talented designers out there, and as is often the case, they have higher rates. But at the same time, you’ll find designers charging like they’re ecdysiasts when they’re not, and vice versa. Such is life on the internerd: anybody can claim to be anything.

While both of these games seem about as different as can be (and gameplay-wise, they certainly are), they share a common thread in that their graphic design has been impeccable. This is more readily apparent in DiRT, as you’re enveloped by Helvetica as soon as you load up the game. I’m serious; be prepared to budget an extra ten minutes or so just playing around in the menus; they are amazing. My favorite part has quickly become the metallic sheen on the gold/silver/bronze portions after you win races. There’s something remarkably special about it, and the menus as a whole are the icing on what is already a very strong game.

You’ll have to look a little further to be truly amazed by Call of Duty 4. Once you get to the cutscenes and mission intros, you’ll be treated to some blockbuster-quality footage. Honestly, and this may not sound great, but think of a Michael Bay movie. Not the blowing-stuff-up parts, but the exposition parts. And also Enemy of the State, that Will Smith movie. It’s just incredibly high-caliber work, and all I can think when watching is that Infinity Ward (the developers) must have been chomping at the bit to make a game that wasn’t set in 1945. Boy, did they kick some ass. All of this after the relative disappointment that was the previous installment (from a different developer), and the result is a disc full of awesome.

There seem to be an awful lot of those lately, and as a gamer, it delights me to be living in a time where games are becoming more and more powerful as a type of media. I love that so much effort and time has been into delivering not just good gameplay, but a good experience as a whole.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go fire up the 360.

When I started doing design work, I was very much about the opportunity to start fresh and create something from nothing. I still enjoy that occasionally, but I’ve really come to relish the chances I get to take an existing design and freshen it and push it to become better than it was.

A great example is a site we at D2 just relaunched for WXPR. It’s not particularly flashy, but the consensus is that it’s a huge improvement over the old site. The key here is that while the graphics received a substantial update, the general layout of the site was strong, and so we could focus on only improving what needed it.

Of course, some sites need more love than others, but my favorite projects are the ones where we have a solid base to work from. For me, having that one constant helps in grounding the rest of the design, which makes for a smoother process with less second-guessing.

This approach finds its way into from-scratch projects as well; Citizen Wausau’s design was the result of a wireframe that was sketched out and approved before anything moved further along. There were a number of failed attempts to capture the desired “feel”, to the point where I was tempted to throw the wireframe out and start over again. I’m glad I didn’t, because the result of all this work is – you guessed it – a solid base from which the next iteration of Citizen Wausau (still in my head at this point) will be born.

This same philosophy applies to writing. I enjoy writing the occasional post when inspired, but I appreciate that CW has Dino willing to contribute his writing talent so I can sit back and move things around after he’s done.

The thing here is, as soon as I start to break out of my average posting time (say, every three days), the harder it is to come back. And when I do come back, the tendency is to start out with a “boy, it’s been awhile” sort of post instead of diving into real content, assuming there was any in the first place.

My problem lately is that my creative “pie chart” is currently overtaken by three things:

1. Design
2. Coding
3. Acting

The first two are pretty standard considering the recent freelance decision, but the third is unexpected. As much as I enjoyed West Side Story, it took a lot out of me and with freelance calling my name, I was looking forward to a lack of rehearsals. Suffice it to say, the lull didn’t last as long as I would’ve liked.

Obviously, both writing and photography are excluded from the list, which means this blog suffers. But here’s me, blogging more.

Right now Facebook doesn’t seem to be quite as widespread within the general populace as Myspace, or at least their circles don’t overlap completely. That said, Facebook wins out for me for a few reasons:

• Most people use real names, and real photos
• Widget-oriented customization means you can have all sorts of junk on your page but it still doesn’t end up being completely ugly
• A lot of functions are handled with AJAX, so like Flickr, you’re jumping around a lot less, which in turn feels faster.
• Seriously, not ugly.
• I have yet to see spam.

On a related note, those in the Wausau area may have noticed the recent shuttering of WausauBlog, something that struck me as rather depressing. It’s fortunate then, that I’ve gotten together with somebody interested in “continuing the legacy” and so we’ve started to work on a spiritual successor to WausauBlog. We’re calling it Citizen Wausau, and while there will be similar content (it will have some of the same contributors), we’re hoping to work in some new features as well.

I think something snapped in me when I started to collaborate on Citizen Wausau. Part of it was a desire to collaborate on more projects with more people, and part of it was being able to work on a project that I was excited about. With that said, I am now officially for hire. Please keep me in mind of you know of anyone who needs a website, or if you want to work together. For now I’m still working at Digital Dialogue, and I’m sure I’ll continue to work with them, just not necessarily for them.

Questions? Comments?

First of all, my Xbox: still dead. Well, maybe not. It’s somewhere in Louisville, Kentucky according to UPS, but get this: it’s on the return trip. I sent it to them last Friday, they got it Wednesday and it was reshipped on Thursday. So I should be seeing it Tuesday and we’ll find out if it’s really fixed.

In the meantime, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (not the new one) continues to entertain. In fact, you’re lucky I’m here writing this at all, since I’d much rather be playing that.

We are all moved in, pretty much, mostly. There are some still-packed boxes, but who cares? The garage is clean.

Last year I mentioned a niggling desire to own a single speed bike, and so instead of spending billions of money to buy some kind of deathtrap car or motorcycle, I decided instead to make good on that. Oddly enough, the bike I chose is the one mentioned in that post: a 2006 Bianchi M.U.S.S. that was stupid cheap. It too is going to be here soon, as I ordered it online instead of going through the local shop, a decision I’ll elaborate on later.

Speaking of biking, the ride to work is obviously farther than it used to be, but I can still make it in about 10 minutes. So suck it, Grand Ave.

Finally, this site looks like crap, I know. I’m working on a new one, which may be what you’re seeing right now or it may not. It looks bad regardless because one site is decaying and the other isn’t done.

The enormous amount of work required even for relatively simple projects was enough to earn designers some respect, but In the last 20 years or so, the actual production process has been made much faster and easier thanks to affordable and intuitive computers and software.

Unfortunately, this gives people the assumption that just because they’re on a Mac with Photoshop they’re the next Saul Bass, or Paula Scher when they don’t even know who those people are. Hell, I barely know who those people are.

The obvious question that arises because of this: how does a real, bona fide designer justify his or her rates as being worthwhile in an attempt to win over the do-it-yourselfers?

My previous logo was a result of about five minutes of Illustrator work slapped inside of a box back in summer of 2004. In spite of this, it worked surprisingly well. Still, it suffered from a couple issues. Most importantly the A could get mistaken for an F, leading one to wonder why there was an icon for Florida. But the trait that bothered me the most was the utter lack of artistic quality. With that, I set out to fix that:

These marked an acceptable start, but didn’t quite get where I wanted to go. I still like the slab serif one, but it still struck me as too straight-edged. The one the right reminds me of RocaWear. I knew that I wanted the A and L to be paired up again, so I continued:

A little closer. The far left doesn’t convey AL so much as AI, but at the end of the row you can see it starting to look familiar. Onward:

I was happy enough with the first one that I started working it out in Illustrator, but as I finished I realized it just wasn’t there. Furthermore, it just didn’t seem quite tight enough, and I can’t believe I liked it that much now that I look at it again. The next two show definite progress toward the final, with a return to the more italicized serifs of the previous row without feeling like a Jon Hicks ripoff.

With that settled, the logo was redone in Illustrator, and finally stylized for icon applications. The one with the stars is used for Flickr, Technorati, iStockPhoto, etc, and the other two find themselves in use on Yahoo! and AOL messengers.

I really like what this new logo has evolved into. It retains the good qualities of the old logo – clean lines and a nearly square proportion – while adding that dash of extra interest that I was looking for.

New

My biggest goal with this new site was to really start taking advantage of the power WordPress has, and that meant a switch to themes. Once I figured out the basics I was very impressed with the options that are available and how easily they can be configured. Versions 9 through 12 of the site ran off of a clump of PHP files that pretty much sat outside of the WordPress umbrella. It really worked in spite of itself, which I think sums up my feelings about it.

In contrast, I was surprised by all the options the theme system has to offer. The search function worked right out of the box (except for one day when it mysteriously didn’t), and now I have a 404 page and real category pages.

The other big reason for the switch is the fact that almost all the good WordPress plugins rely on the theme to do what they do. The contact form is a good example of this; it’s generated using a quicktag and therefore had to be set up as a WordPress page. And thanks to pages, my menus no longer have to be hard-coded.

Improved

Usability was next on my list of priorities. I’ve already mentioned the 404 and Search pages, but I also added PHP redirects on the old _____.php pages that push the user to the current page rather than a 404. Also, thanks again to the themes, all category listings are now clickable.

You’ll also notice the wider comment display area on the single pages, and, just for jb, clicking the header now takes you home.

Just Plain Different

Aside from this pretty new design (I swear, I DID NOT steal the banner idea from Jonathan Snook!), there are two more notable changes. The first is that I’m done with del.icio.us. It worked fine for links, yes, but since installing WordPress 2.0 back in February, I haven’t been able to make it play nice with Magpie RSS. Rather, I mentioned using a Javascript approach but that didn’t please me either, partially because it wasn’t searchable and partially because something in the way it was set up never displayed properly in Internet Exploere (not even 7!).

This time out I’m going mainstream and integrating the links right into the main body. They’re pretty easy to pick out, since they don’t have titles and have a cute little border thing applied to them. More importantly, they now have times and dates applied to them, and it’s one less service to rely on.

The other big step is a brand new logo, as you may have already noticed in a number of places. For now, suffice it to say that I like it much better than the old one and I’ll write more later.

That about wraps it up. What do you think?

• Gapless playback (ON THE 5G IPODS TOO!)
• The new nanos
• Graphic design for the new nanos
• Steve’s non-black non-turtleneck
• iTunes 7

Undecided, or I just don’t care:

• The “iTV”
• Movie downloads
• The new shuffle
• iPod games

Thumbs down:

• No gapless playback in pre-6G iPods (firmware update please?)
• Steve, unbutton that top button!

Today marks the date, and though DOCADD still has me in its clutches, but its grip is loosening. Minor bits and pieces have been altered along the way, along with a slight refresh last month, but nothing extensive has been altered and so I consider the effort largely successful.

Furthermore, I’m happy enough with the site in its current form, that barring another minor update or two, it will continue in this state for a couple more months. Instead of arbitrarily redesigning again, I want to hold out for the next CSS Reboot on November 1.

This decision holds a couple of advantages:

• It keeps me from rushing into things. No matter what happens, I cannot show a finished product before November 1. Plenty of time to refine a design (this should be the long part) and CSS-ify it.
• It generates more interest as part of a larger event. I’m still getting hits from the one I did back in Spring of 2005. And I’m a sucker for publicity.

Now it’s just a matter of working the design magic. I’ve got a general wireframe in mind but nothing solid yet. I want it to be nice. Really nice. I just have to figure out how to make it really nice without resorting to the Web 2.0 trendiness.

There are also a couple of features I’m wanting to try out, though I can’t say with certainty what will work and what won’t. Following in jb‘s and more recently majafa‘s footsteps, there’s a good chance you’ll see a “recent comments” section on the homepage.

That’s really all I know.

Last week a copy of GQ showed up, with a note about how Cargo is no longer so we’d be receiving this instead. I wasn’t really sure what to expect since I’ve never really read GQ before. As it turns out, it’s better. Way better. GQ manages a nice medium between the list-ridden Cargo, the bitchy details, and poor, bi-monthly, ad-stricken Complex. Those other magazines were all fine, but I actually quite enjoy GQ‘s selection of content and sense of humor.

We also seem to accumulate Metropolitan Home magazines in spite of the fact that neither of us is a subscriber. I’ve grown to like them quite a lot as well since they also strike a good balance of content, photos, and actual real information (floor plans, etc). Unfortunately, while our home is rent-controlled it is neither metropolitan nor open for modification so the ideas we see are doomed to occupy the back burner for now.

One such idea was in an article about a pair of guys in a Boston loft. They have two dishwashers, and the space from each is adequate for all of their dishes. As a result the entire array of dishes resides in the dishwashers and gets shifted from one to the other as they get used, which struck both of us as quite a brilliant idea. Considering that cabinetry for dishes probably costs nearly as much as a second dishwasher it seems to be a clever solution especially if you’re lazy or your cabinet space is limited.

This is easier said than done because I still have a bunch of posts with images to account for and they all need a two-column layout to be happy and healthy. Fortunately, a few strategically distributed if/else statements were enough to take care of this and now I have a layout that makes me much happier.

The second change really doesn’t benefit anyone in particular but I decided to rewrite my info page because I was sick of just having lists of stuff and because this new one fits with the three-column philosophy.

The final change I made after I wrote this because I realized how many times I tend to make changes to posts. Take note of the small grey number next to the title; from now on that’s your reference to the version of this particular post. Minor things like adding links to existing content will result in a .1 addition, while major things like adding this paragraph you’re reading are good for a whole new version.

Of particular interest to me was Gnarls Barkley, in part because I’d never heard the music before but also because of their presentation. They decided to go with a Star Wars theme which sounds a little cheesy but was way, way better than it sounds. Aside from how good I thought the song was (which resulted in me buying the album), I couldn’t help but be reminded of PDF by the bass-playing Storm Trooper.

And Chewbacca on drums? Priceless.

Finally, just for the record, I am convinced that Christina Aguilera has the talent and versatility to follow in Madonna’s footsteps.

Pictures are worth more words than I wrote.

Another happy note is that this machine is a little more open for me to configure as I need to, meaning I can install necessary software without involving an entire department (things like Adium for inter-office communications or FontExplorer for quick and easy (and free!) font management. Eventually it might be interesting to play with Boot Camp though that is probably best left until we see Leopard.

Other than that and aside from form factor, the new hardware is really no different than the old in any measurable way. I continue to use Apple’s Mighty Mouse as I’ve grown quite used to it by now (where is the Bluetooth version, though?) and I guess I have an iSight though it’s virtually useless. One thing of note, and this is something I’d read and forgotten about, is how amazingly fast the boot process is. Whereas with my laptop or even the old G5 OS X took at least a minute to collect its thoughts before getting going, the Intel build—I swear—takes literally 25 seconds, if that. It’s so ridiculously fast that I can press the button, turn around to hang up my jacket, and have it ready for me when I turn back to it. So, so cool.

So seriously – when are we getting the 13″ MacBook Pro?

In a way it feels as though today, my final day of work there, was my very last day of school. It’s not as far-fetched of a comparison as you might think. Everybody comes into the department relatively young (fresh out of school in many cases) as interns (freshmen) or associates (sophomores). A year later I was made a non-associate (junior) and another year after that, I was fortunate enough to receive senior status. With the time spent and the different types of projects completed, my design and technical knowledge transformed me from a greenhorn into a marketable, real designer.

Sure, this can also be achieved by going through more schooling, but I don’t think it was nearly as valuable as actually doing it. I don’t know that a lot of students learn to market their designs to people other than their professors – people who don’t necessarily care about design for design’s sake and who would rather just have you make the main message bigger and also red. When you’re going from one environment to the other, it can be quite startling if you’re not prepared.

For the two years I could have been in school, I instead had a steady income, job security, and received a ton of experience dealing with real-world situations. I learned about office politics, how to come up with an on-the-spot explanation of why I made certain design choices (even if they were arbitrary), and how to cope with total redesigns even though I gave the requester exactly what he or she asked for. Again, all of this was invaluable knowledge, and generally much more entertaining than school anyway. Additionally, you’re showing other potential employers that you are indeed employable.

Don’t think for a minute that I’m suggesting every aspiring designer should drop out of school and find a job. But I’m absolutely confident that it’s the best career choice I ever made.

Regardless, Rollyo offered a simple to implement and unobtrusive solution to my dilemma. Once you’ve signed up they have an area where you can fill in a simple form and have the appropriate code generated. While the pre-made ones look nice enough (example here, kind of), the dropdown menu (for site selection) bothered me as it really doesn’t serve a purpose. Rather than try to figure this out on my own, I looked to a site that uses a version similar to what I wanted: Airbag.

It took me a minute to figure out what data the form was using to tell it what site to search, and it turns out it’s this:

<select name='sid' style='display: none;'><option value='65987'>andylaub.com...

The highlighted number is basically the ID assigned to the site that you’ve added (for some perspective, Airbag’s number is 7080). In the standard dropdown menu it can handle multiple user-defined sites, each with its own number but in this usage only the one for andylaub.com is necessary. Also of note is the style attribute in the select tag which keeps the list from being shown at all; with only one option there’s no point in having it visible.

That’s it in a nutshell. I’m pleased with the result for now, at least as a stopgap, as it makes older stuff easier to find until I can create a more comprehensive and organized archive. The only issue I’ve noticed is the time it takes to index new pages, so putting in “Madonna,” for example, wouldn’t turn up the post I wrote Saturday (yet).

Something about his decision really resonated with me. I was sad that he was going but also envious that he was going someplace while I was not. Which made me really kind of step back from what I was doing and re-evaluate my plans for long-term employment. I figured I might as well update my Monster resume and then spent some time looking at potential jobs. Finding none, I called it a night.

The next day I found a message in my inbox from a small web-oriented design firm here in Wausau called Digital Dialogue. I had heard of them before and they’ve always struck me as a neat establishment. I met the next day with the owner and before long I’d done a sample project and an offer was made (and accepted).

So with that, within two weeks both Paul and I are bidding farewell to an employer that took both of us in fresh out of school and where we were able to gain a lot of experience with minimal risk. I’m certainly thankful for the opportunities I’ve had there and all the different projects I’ve been a part of, but Paul’s decision made me realize that I too was at the point where it was time for a change. Now it’s on to the next step in both of our careers.

The Problem

I’m going to coin another phrase, and I call it Designer’s Obsessive-Compulsive Attention Deficit Disorder; DOCADD for short. But I’m not just the discoverer of DOCADD, I’m also a victim.

Since its launch in December of 2000, this site has gone through 16 significant structural and/or aesthetic revisions, which averages out to about 3 per year. Which, in the designer world, isn’t totally unheard of until you consider that nearly half of them occurred in 2005 alone. I could make excuses by claiming that 8.0 (01/05) was when the CSS conversion happened, and then 8.5 (05/05) was for the Reboot, and then 9.0 (06/05) was the short-lived WordPress test site. Then we’ve got the three different versions of 10 (the white one, the brown one, and the black one) and the recently deceased (good riddance) version 11. That’s a total of seven.

I relaunched my site seven times last year.

That is obsession verging on the edge of insanity. Then let’s consider all the tiny updates that happened in between the major relaunches, like the color and sizing adjustments and just general code modifications and you’re up to probably close to a hundred different versions of the site over a year which works out, amazingly, to a new release almost every three days.

So the question is, why? Why do I put so much time into this website? I don’t know. I know when I’m updating why I’m doing it but I think part of it goes back to DOCADD. I can almost guarantee that I have ADD when it comes to things like this, and I start thinking about ways to make it better because after seeing it day after day it starts to bore me, something that indicates bad design. And that spurs me to start thinking about the next version. The OCD kicks in when I notice little niggling details, like incorrect spacing or inconsistent date formats, or when I think of things that could just be displayed better.

The Resolution

Because I think I have (finally, though I say that all every time) arrived at a design that I think has some staying power, I’m making the resolution to keep this site in its current iteration for six months. 180 days. That means that yellow header will be my best friend until August 22, at least. It probably won’t happen, but we’ll see. I can’t shouldn’t keep this up.

Posts

As you may have noticed, beginning with Chicago, pt 2 posts will no longer have an image associated with them by default. I made this decision for a number of reasons. First of all, having an image to go with the post was keeping me from posting as frequently as I’d like; there are certain days, as evidenced in the archives, that the image and the words have nothing to do with one another anyway so why associate the two? Secondly, flickr has way more power and capacity than I could ever hope to match, and so they are my new choice for hosting images. They will make organization and sharing easier, and they have a number of nifty features that I wanted to try out.

Images

Like I said, I’m now using flickr for these. I use the flickrRSS plugin to wrap the images in the appropriate elements and display them onsite; it’s minimalist in its options but it does what I need and does it well. Over the weekend I also experimented with a variety of image uploading techniques. Flickr’s web uploader is quite nice and I prefer it over Flidget, a Dashboard widget that, while convenient, only lets you tag and upload one image at a time. The cream of the crop is flickr’s own Flickr Uploadr which gives you about 95% of the capabilities of the web admin panel without ever having to open your browser.

Links

I continue to use del.icio.us for links because it’s just so damn easy, but upon discovering that they provide a JavaScript alternative to Magpie (my old PHP method of fetching the links) I decided to try that out. Implementation is fairly basic, though I was challenged by the code because I wanted the link to include not just the headline but the description as well (and all function as a link). This is what I came up with:

function showImage(img){ return (function(){ img.style.display='inline' }) }
var span =document.createElement('span')
for (var i=0, post; post = Delicious.posts[i]; i++) {
    var a = document.createElement('a')
    a.setAttribute('href', post.u)
    a.setAttribute('class', "entry")
    var h3 = document.createElement('h3')
    var p = document.createElement('p')
    h3.appendChild(document.createTextNode(post.d))
    p.appendChild(document.createTextNode(post.n))
    a.appendChild(h3)
    a.appendChild(p)
    span.appendChild(a)
}
document.getElementById('delish').appendChild(span)

The result is exactly what I was aiming for. The del.icio.us method seems more capable than the Magpie route with its ability to show favicons and tags in addition to just the title and description.

Feeds

If you wander down to the footer, which you should be able to see by the time you’re reading this, you’ll notice that I’ve finally added a feed link to more easily obtain the RSS for this site. If you’re interested, here’s the master list of feeds in case you want to follow my photos or links as well as the words:

• Journal
• Images
• Elsewhere

The last time I had a case for my Game Boy was back in grade school when my sister got me a gigantic plastic grey one for my birthday. It was soooo cool, but I digress. I decided that with the DS, if I’m going to take it somewhere I want it to have its own bag, but unlike that case of yesteryear, I didn’t want any kind of video game-branded geek box or anything of that sort. Instead, I headed straight to Best Buy with the intent of picking up a case similar to the one I bought for my camera (the LowePro Z10, which will easily hold the camera, the iPod, and my phone) and was not disappointed. The LowePro Ridge 60 is exactly what I was looking for, and will easily hold the DS (and maybe a second one, eventually), a couple Game Boy games, a couple DS games, an AC adapter, and a Game Boy Advance SP. And it’s cheap!

Unfortunately, not all is peaches and strawberries with the DS; my anal retentive obsessive compulsive designer’s eye keeps complaining to me about its aesthetics. My biggest gripe is the silver bottom on a red console. The standard DS gets a black bottom, which is what I would’ve preferred. So I did what any normal person would do; I started looking for shells on eBay. I settled on one of these, which may or may not be what I’m ultimately happy with. At the very least the black bottom should be useful, but I ordered the black one so I may end up with an entirely black console. We’ll see.

As of tomorrow Friday, I’m off to Chicago. Need anything?

Additionally, we stopped at Best Buy and I got to play around with a PSP for the first time ever. It’s… not very good. It might have been because I had just tried a DS and so I was coming off of a system with no load times. Overall though, I spend more time waiting around for the PSP to make up it’s fragile little mind and just gave up on it after awhile. The DS on the other hand… well, I’ve still been thinking about it. We took another jaunt over to ShopKo yesterday to see if they still had any of the red ones in stock, but nope, they were done.

But what’s sitting on the ottoman, you ask? Well, we stopped at the other ShopKo today, and jackpot. I know I’ve been fawning over the DS Lite and I still am; I think I may pick one up after they’re out for a bit and Abe will inherit this one. In the meantime I’ll continue to get my ass handed to me at Mario Kart while trying to find a copies of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Trauma Center: Under the Knife that don’t cost $50.

So what’s the significance of this photo, then? Well, our final demo of the day was at Younkers, looking at impulse furniture (“gee, it’d be nice to have a couch upstairs”). As of today, we have a couch upstairs and some nice ottomans from Target. Impulse furniture. Yeah…

It seems that the more I learn about CSS the more inclined I am to use that instead of any kind of actual layout program, and while it seems to be working OK, suddenly the site launches and I hate it. Part of that is a result of general frustration with every site implementation since 8.5, the version I did for the Reboot. I didn’t really like that one all that much and I haven’t been a huge fan of any of the WordPress-enabled versions.

With 8.5 it was just too bizarre a concept, and a result of being chained to the HTML that was already there. With the others the mistake I made was jumping straight from concept sketches to a final version without mocking anything up beforehand. That left CSS responsible for most of the elements and that resulted in sites that didn’t sit well with me for long (hence the jump through 4 versions in half a year). You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now, but current evidence shows that I certainly haven’t.

That might sound fickle, but what’s strange is that I can go back and look at all the microsites I did at work and be quite happy with most of them. The reason? Every single one originated in ImageReady (Photoshop’s web-oriented sister) and was then translated to HTML. Almost none use CSS. It’s totally opposite from what I have here, and maybe that’s why I have what I have here.

What I need to do then, is literally go back to the drawing board, and not rely on CSS for (all) my design elements.

One of the biggest was whether Windows will run on this new generation of Macs. Short answer: not yet. Basically, Windows XP uses a different boot system than Apple does (BIOS vs EFI) and so XP is a no-go (until it’s hacked). However, Windows Vista is just around the corner and is expected to run on the Apple hardware. Another however: it was pointed out here that they apparently don’t support the same file structure so that could poise a problem with data transfer from one to the other. Regardless, the main point is that Apple itself has chosen not to attempt any sort of restriction.

TV Time

With this groundbreaking new step, what kind of company would Apple be if they didn’t give us some hot new advertising to fawn over? PDF mentioned that he was reading somewhere that the ad was essentially a ripoff of a Postal Service video. He then mentioned that he thought that the song that Apple used in the ad was a Postal Service song, which we both thought would have been cool and made sense. I was intrigued by this so I decided to check it out.

As it turns out, nope. The song from the Apple ad is actually God Moving Over the Face of the Waters from Moby Songs 1993 – 1998. A shame, since it would’ve been such a cool tie-in. The Postal Service video is for the song Such Great Heights from their album Give Up. See it here..

Out of fairness, I have to say they do share an awful lot of similarities. The shots are similarly dramatic, and the music gives a similar vibe as well. Now, if you wanted to see a video that was totally different, than maybe check out the video for We Will Become Silhouettes directed by Napoleon Dynamite‘s Jared Hess.

Software Updates

And speaking of music, iTunes (and friends) received various amounts of updates as well. Of everything though, iTunes is receiving the most notoriety for a new feature called the MiniStore, a small pane docked at the bottom of your library that updates each time you choose a new song to listen to. The reason this caused so much stress is that to update the information, iTunes needs to take at least some information (the song title and artist) and transmit it back to Apple which then responds with updated recommendations. At the very minimum, because it is indeed transmitting private information (albeit unimportant information) this could effectively brand the MiniStore as spyware.

Thankfully, Apple has responded by assuring users that the information sent is only used to call up the recommendations and then discarded. This is great, but what really bothered many was the fact that they just added the MiniStore in and failed to mention that it is in fact using your internet connection to send your information to Apple without permission. Personally, given all the information, it really doesn’t matter to me but I can understand the concern. If you can get past this, the MiniStore is actually a pretty neat feature, and is easy enough to hide if you don’t want to use it (it has its own button at the bottom near the EQ and Visualizer buttons).

Wiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeescreen

If you’ve visited Apple’s site lately and can keep from getting distracted by all that sweet, sweet MacBook pr0n, then you may have noticed the Apple site has gone widescreen. Their homepage is now somewhere around 800px wide while the MacBrook pages are closer to 900. It’s quite an interesting change, but with each successive page they add, the navigation continues to look older and more outdated. Pinstripes? What is this, 2003?

Speaking of wide screens, I’m coming up on a year’s ownership of the Cinema display, and nearly 2 years of ownership on the Powerbook. As much as I’ve enjoyed my first Mac ownership experience, like the iPod, I can’t help but look even more forward to my next one. I’ve been quite back and forth between the different options. A Powermac seemed like a good idea, but it’s rather large and I whined before about how it was rather difficult to choose a model.

I briefly considered a Mac mini but it would have to receive the Intel treatment first. Even then, I’d miss the fine auxiliary display provided by my 12″ Powerbook, which leaves but one option: I need whatever MacBook Pro takes over for the 12″ Powerbook. The original proved to be a quite lovable size so I see no reason not to expect a MacBook Pro version. I don’t expect the current screen to stick around; more than likely we’ll see a similar size in a widescreen format. Hopefully that will be accompanied by higher resolution and brightness more akin to that of the cinema displays and larger MacBook bretheren. While we’re at it, let’s throw in the Intel Core Duo at 1.83 Ghz and 2 Gb of RAM. And hey, how about one of them newfangled 7200 RPM hard drives, and we’re all set.

1. All These Things That I’ve Done
   The Killers
2. Picture Book
   Tommy Womack
3. DARE
   Gorillaz
4. Undone
   Owsley
5. Jerk It Out
   Caesars
6. Wires
   Athlete
7. All at Sea
   Jamie Cullum
8. Golden Touch
   Razorlight
9. L-L-Love
   Astaire
10. Canned Heat
    Jamiroquai

11. What You Waiting For?
    Gwen Stefani
12. Galang
    M.I.A.
13. There’s a Million Ways to Sing the Blues
    The Features
14. C’mon C’mon
    Von Bondies
15. Don’t Ask Me
    Ok Go
16. Theme From Dr. Pyser
    Ben Folds Five
17. Do You Want To
    Franz Ferdinand
18. Country House
    Blur
19. Hung Up
    Madonna
20. Zorba the Greek
    John Murphy & David Hughes

That I work and feel this way really doesn’t surprise me much. I like to assemble things, but I don’t so much enjoy creating the components out of which those things are assembled. Maybe it’s because coding is really kind of is a menial task, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean that unlike with creating graphics, there’s a definite right and wrong way (for the most part) to code a site and you know when you are done. The only creativity really comes when deciding what kind of language to script things in, or how to eliminate one or two more classes from the CSS, which is nice. It’s easier making structural, necessary decisions than aesthetic and subjectively arbitrary ones.

Anyways…

Alista has a thought-provoking article on using CSS to apparently *ahem* think outside the grid, something I obviously did with this site. Whatever. From what I read of the article, it seems to be a little misguided and confused. But the comments are gold. At least I can take consolation in the fact that other designers agree that Alista is not 100% infallible.

The grid discussion comes on the heels of not only the redesign of my own site but PDF’s recent article about structure. He observed about his own site:

I tend to carry the structure of the HTML that makes up a web page into its presentation. What I mean by that is most of the block elements tend to stack on top of or next to each other rather than flowing in, around or through each other. Even if the layout isn’t built on a fixed grid, there is often that clear separation of elements defined by right angles and gutters.

This is one of the biggest design commonalities Paul and I share. I don’t think this is a bad thing – it’s always good to start with a grid, which is why Alista’s article seemed so ludicrous to me. I could continue to elaborate, but I’m not saying anything the aforementioned comments already said.

Viva la Grid!

Seems like things have kind of gone downhill in the looks department. VW and Audi have introduced the monogrille to absolutely no enthusiasm from me, likewise with every single new BMW. All of these cars just rub me the wrong way, maybe because they were looking so, so good and then suddenly turned into crap. Maybe one of the reasons I’m losing my affection for these masters of the autobahn is a feeling of betrayal. VW’s questionable intent to move upmarket ($30,000 Jettas?) is another decision that just irks me.

Above all, I think the Germans are notorious for FIWA. The cars that I once admired now seem overweight and overstyled, especially compared to cheaper and less complicated alternatives like the new Civic Si or the gorgeous TSX and S2000. Plus, as my dad likes to say, “the more things it has, the more things can go wrong,” and from my experience, Honda’s been more than capable of eliminating frivolous electronics (Hill-holding assist? Volkswagen, it’s called the damn brake pedal!).

There are, as always, exceptions to this.

This is when you have to start thinking about scale. How important is this project, and what kind of lifespan is it going to have? I could understand the weeks or months of struggle if you’re developing a new identity for, say, AT&T. On the other hand, if you’re working on a catalog with a lifespan of a month, chances are you’re not going to spend nearly as much time developing the look since it will be gone and forgotten before long.

Which brings me back to my dilemma. In this case the colors and design in question are for a personal project which in a way adds another complication. When I’m working on stuff for my actual real job it’s easier because of the aforementioned short lifespans, but also because there are others involved on the project so I don’t have to completely rely on myself for feedback. There are certain times where I get to a point in a project and just can’t do anything else with it. At this point it helps to see the marketeer in charge because I can start to refine it or add things I missed or remove things that are unnecessary, which means that whether I like it or not I have to continue to work until we are both (hopefully) satisfied.

Not so at home. I could call it a day if I wanted to on this project and proceed to the next steps and stare at it and feel guilty about not having put more thought into it, or I could continue to waste time on trying to make it look better when I really like it right now. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Anyway, I picked up a second pair since I like my other ones so much. On a related note, Converse’s site is looking really nice these days, and it seems like thanks to Nike iD, everybody’s doing customization. Well, that last one makes sense — Converse and Nike iD have the same personalization menus, even!

And the obligatory other magic shoe picture.

And I know that I haven’t even come close to my allocated bandwidth for the month so without further ado, here’s the 2400 x 1200 version (716K). Or, you can view it on flickr with the super-sweet little notes. It *almost* makes me want to put more pictures there, if I had any.