[tech] Welcome Aboard Google Treasure Maps; This Is Your Pirate Speaking

2907.Just stumbled on this just now. This is something people will have fun with.

Gamboling about the globe on Google Maps and Street view, I saw a bit of a peculiarity; quite surprising actually. I've seen the buttons in Google Maps in a variety of ways, but never like this before …

Treasure?

Yes, treasure.

And what does a map of Portland look like as a Google Treasure Map? Well, like this:

 
A little rough, but nice. I mean, what does a pirate need to know except …

 Where the treasure is. How adorable. They put a bird on it.

The detail, as I said, is not great. if there were tools to draw dotted lines and such I wasn't able to find them; requesting directions just puts the regular route line and the A and B (or however many) flags on it. The real fun comes when using street view. The little guy turns into a telescope; drag the shadow of the telescope and you'll see things in glorious age-inflected sepia.

The tale is told of the Dread Pirate Greenbeard, sailing the multimodal asphalt, coming from Gresham to unleash torment and plunder upon the prime trade routes crossing the Willamette River. Enroute, he passed through the treacherous pavement in the Russellville Main:

Sailing between the Scylla of the Chevron station at SE 102nd and Stark and the Charybdis of the Starbucks and food cart pod across the street was no easy task; he hadn't had his coffee that morning, had to run out of the house so skipped breakfast, and was running low of fuel. But this privateer knew that great reward attends great risk.

After taking broadsides all the way down the Banfield freeway into town, avoiding the siren song of the Laurelhurst Theater (though not on the freeway, its song could be heard by mariners for leagues in every direction, luring them to idle hours drinking IPAs and eating pizza slices), and, going through the Straits of No Return (the Lloyd District), he finally found his goal:

Success was his. Provided he paid the licensing fee to feature the famous Portland sign in the gazette of his travels …

But then he remembered. He was a pirate.

And not even landlubbers paid that fee!

Success just got that much sweeter!

UPDATE: Google Maps Mania has some additional information, and easter eggs. Which is appropriate. 

[art] The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Typewriter

2842.They say that typewriters are dead and/or dying?

Maybe. But maybe not.

There is a particularly vital existence for the typewriter in this post-typewriter media world however. Similar to the retro/funky/cool/connoisseurs vibe that the vinyl LP record is enjoying these days, the typewriter simply refuses to die. And people keep coming back to rediscover a classic:

 Banuelos, who started working at the store 44 years ago, when he was in high school, isn’t surprised by the recent bump in interest. Typewriters are beautiful objects, he said. People want to buy them.
“We have customers all the time,” he said. “[It’s] somebody’s birthday, somebody’s anniversary, or somebody in love with a young boyfriend.” To want a typewriter, you have to be a bit of a romantic, he added, “and besides, they’re cool.” They can also be a relief from computers and the distractions of the Internet. “They want a machine that has to be old, unique and nice,” Banuelos said. “Why? Because of this. The click, click, click. They want that.”

Not only are people who value and feel romantic about the past using them, certain Great American Writers still swear by them.

The whole story is at Salon, here: http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/a_typewriter_renaissance/singleton/

[net liff] The End of the Internet

2380.

This I dug up a few days ago from this spot. Harkens to a time when the intartuuebz was a simpler place:

The farthest east site on the farthest east bit of land in North America used to have just one incoming/outgoing leg.

Good times, people, good times.

The West Wide Web

2127.I am now using Firefox 3.5, and I'm well pleased. This is a good update. And, judging by the popularity, me and over eight millions worldwide rather agree.

Firefox never debuts without a little flash and style, and they've provided one in the form of the live download monitor at the location http://downloadstats.mozilla.com. The thing, which is really quite nifty, provides a graphical view (via a world map) and tabular view (below the map) which you can reconfigure on the fly as you like.

Two days ago, with I originally downloaded FF, I checked in on that. At the height of the download frenzy, here's three screenshots of that map. See if you can discern the story it seems to be telling:

That was the graphical state of the Firefox download world at approximately 1357 PDT on 30 June 2009. What is more remarkable than where Firefox is getting downloaded is where it isn't. I watched the little candles flicker in and own for several minutes, and I expected a big demand from the USA and Western Europe, but Asia (except for the occiasional flicker in Japan and the Phillippines), Oceania (save for the occaisional pip on the lower right margin of Australia) and Africa? Hardly anything. The European interest dropped off like a wall when the eye crossed the boundary into the heart of the old Warsaw Pact, it seems.

The most active continent behind NorthAm and Europe was South America, but it seemed, visually to be a rather feeble third-place. I just checked back on it at the time of this writing, and it looks much the same (though the rates have slowed down somewhat), and the countries at the top of the list have remained the USA, Germany, France, and Japan (the USA has the most FF downloads by far, with over 2 Millions).

Country-by-country downloads of FF as of 1305 PDT 2 July 2009.
The five top countries: USA, Germany, Japan, France, the UK.
Download frequency seems to drop precpitiously as you move down this list.
Screencaptured from http://downloadstats.mozilla.com.

I will say right up front here, as I do a little drilling-down, that I don't know if this says anything particular. Actually it probably says many cogent things, for instance, it seems to suggest that the world economy (if you take a preponderance of personal computers and users with time to download internet porn Firefox as congruent to wealth and prosperity, which doesn't seem an unreasonable thing to do) is still largely based in and driven by what we used to call the "First World"; you could see here the digital divide writ large amongst the nations of the world, you could see this as a diagram of what has and what doesn't have (and, certainly, great swaths of territory are empty because they are inclement to human life; still, there are areas that are comparativiely thick with humanity (central Africa, the eastern margin of South America, and notable, China and India) that one would think would be ablaze. But they aren't). I'm also not trying to ring anyone up for being unfair. We all not only generate but are subject to stresses that we sometimes don't understand. We are what we are and the world is what it is.

The point that I've kind of wound my way to is this: Even in this world where we can grab a webcam and virtually travel anywhere, we still live in a limited world, and the lens with which we view it seems to be skewed toward the developed West. This can be a good thing (if we understand that our view is, despite being what it is, is limited, and we work to keep this in mind) or a bad thing (if we use our view of the world being what we see over the WWW to be a confirmation of our bias that our Western society is necessarily (I cannot note strongly enough that operative term) is the acme of civilized development on this planet

Though the WWW and increasingly less expensive technology (software as well as hardware) we have a great lens that lets us see the world as our forebears not only couldn't, but couldn't imagine. But, paradoxically, it seems to hide at the same time it seems to reveal. What do you really know about the center of Asia, or the center of Africa, or southeast Asia? What you read on the Web, of course, which is largely found in the industrialized West.

It's a beautiful lens onto the world, the WWW is. I don't know how I got alon with out it. But, just like any advanced instrument, it must be used with care. We must be smart enough to know what it tells us, as well as what it doesnt.

Technorati Tags: WWW, World Wide Web, Firefox, Internet, trends, global society, global politics, punditry

This Bike Lane Goes Anywhere You Do

2107.Here's something that will delight bike riders and probably make motorists angry; it's called the "Light Lane", and it's a bike accessory that uses low-power laser light to project a virtual bike lane on the street as you ride:

(image copyright LightLane)

What's amazing about it is that it's these two green lasers mounted into a typical-looking bike tail light.

Whatever you think of it, you've got to admit it's pretty innovative. I think I'd like to have one.

(This is via this article at toxel.com)

Technorati Tags: bikes, bike safety, bike accessories, lightlane

Windows 7 Package Design Is A Winner

2104.We love Microsoft, we hate Microsoft, we're ambivalent about Vista … whatever you think about the Lords of Redmond, they've got some sharp ideas about packaging Windows 7:

We’ve reduced the number of elements in the package down to three: the plastic case, the paper sleeve, and a simple Getting Started Guide. The plastic case opens easily like a standard DVD case and it will have a single easy-to-remove seal at the top - And that’s it!

…

The plastic case protecting the Windows 7 disk is lighter and is recyclable. The packaging itself has a 37% weight reduction and a 50% improvement on it’s econometrics score over the predecessor.

Seems like a winner to me. I remember the days – they weren't so long ago – when you got a lot of printed collateral in those boxes. Indeed, I do like the feeling of a solid User's Manual in my hands … but I can't deny that the trend is away from so much consumption and use, and Microsoft has read its users and the trends very well.

Read all about it (and see a piccy!) here.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7, Microsoft, Package Design, Software Package design

Chrome Might Be Pretty, But It Always Costs You Extra

2099.Google Chrome, the newest kid on the block, has impressed many (except those of us who use Macs) but the Chrome comes at an extra cost: It finds your memory most tasty.

Check out the figures in this benchmark test at dotnetperls.com.

Technorati Tags: Google Chrome, Browsers

Want To Be A Gmail Ninja?

2098.It's probably a hell of a lot easier than being an actual ninja, and since we're all using Gmail anyway (remember when you had to wangle an invitation? Sigh … good times, good times), some of these tips will be useful if you address Gmail in a browser window.

Find out by going to the Gmail blog.

Technorati Tags: Gmail, Gmail Tips

[tech] NetNewsWire Is The Cheese for My Mac

1241. Like many Mac users, I was thrilled to find out that NetNewsWire is now freeware. While I loves me my RSS, actually buying a feed reader has been a bit impractical, budgets being what they are.

And I've tried web-based readers but for some reason I like using applications resident on my home machine for such things. I like the illusion of ownership that I get – I know it's just as ephemeral as anything delivered through a browser, but browsers, amazingly enough, still (after all this time – WTF?) don't work on every site.

When I found out by word-of-web that NNW is now free, I went immediately to the website to download and try out. I didn't know that it not only reads your feeds (and makes it dead simple to subscribe) but also functions as a decent, basic web browser, meaning you only have to go to the default browser (which, with me, would ideally be the bastard child of Firefox and Safari) when you gots to.

I am officially in love with NNW, and thank you, Newsgator, for this belated Chi-mas gift!

Tags: Newsgator, NetNewsWire, RSS reader, freeware

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[tech] iPod Users: Upgrade to iTunes 7.5 Before Upgrading to 1.2.2

1113. A bit of a warning for iPod 5G (and 5.5G) owners – there's a new update to the iPod operating software, to version 1.2.2. I'm not sure what it adds to the iPod, but I like keeping this ugraded, so I went in and did it – and the iPod came back with the lists (playlists, song lists, everything) completely wiped clean.

Even though the iPod was apparently filled, the menus were completely blank.

However, upgrading iTunes to version 7.5 (we were running 7.3) fixes this problem.

So, if you want to keep your iPod software current, make sure you're running the most recent iTunes. Nothing was damaged, but it sure looked weird...

Technorati Tags: iPod

[tech] Gmail Users Can Has IMAP Naow–So What?

1049. That sound you heard over the net everywhere today was the sound of power users having a simlutaneous techgasm over the revelation that Gmail, the service pretty much everyone (including me) uses to stay connected, now offers IMAP (Internet Messaging Access Protocol).

There's so much fanfare over it that made me wonder about it–what it was and why I'd want to use it. So I went looking for information, my question: I've used POP for years now. It works just fine. Is this something I really need to care that much about?

IMAP, stripped of all the tech-jargon, is an email protocol that differs from tradtional POP mail essentially in that what you see on your home machine is what you got on line. Right now, the way my email is configured, I use POP and have Gmail trash the messages as I download them.

In an IMAP setup, the configuration of read and unread messages, folders, everything, is mirrored on my mail server. With POP, if I log in anywhere else, I see what hasn't been downloaded to my home yet. With IMAP, I see in Gmail what I have on my home machine, no matter where I log in.

But I still wondered why I would want to move over to an IMAP setup vice POP. I found a page at Columbia University that put it into perspective pretty well:

IMAP keeps the mail folders on the server, and it is compatible with Webmail and Pine. You can switch between different computers, mail programs, Webmail, and Pine, and they will all show the same mail folders and have the same messages marked as seen. If you want this flexibility, use IMAP.
POP keeps the mail folders on the PC. This has some advantages for speed and offline use, but requires that you always read mail with the same PC, which may be true if you carry a laptop around, or always read your EE Columbia mail from the office.

So, if you're lucky enough to be reading email from multiple computers (as in that fabulous future when I finally have the MacBook Pro I so richly deserve) then IMAP would be of a benefit, but the way it looks, if you just have a desktop machine or just one computer and read all your email on that computer, then at best it really doesn't matter how you do it.

Of course, me, with my one computer, all I really care about is that my email get to me. And I get that either way.

Technorati Tags: Gmail,tech,webmail,techgasms

[type, tech] Mac Font Tips

1011. Excellent little article on type troubleshooting on the Macintosh from Macworld.

Technorati Tags: Macintosh,typography,troubleshooting

[pdx, tech] Google Street View PDX: Astoundingly There

1001. How good is Google's PDX Street view, commented on by better than I today?

You know how one of the best views of downtown is from the top deck of the Marquam Bridge–but it's a freeway so you can't pull over to look?

Well, hell...now you can stand in the middle of the damn Interstate...

And if you love walking downtown but just can't get down there today, you can at least get a piccy of it (tho' it do look a little Sim City-ish:

I wonder sometimes if there's nothing that Google can't do.

When you remember that Google started with two geeks in a garage, the mind boggles.

Technorati Tags: Google Maps,Google Street View,Street View,Portland Oregon

[tech] Ever Wonder What Happens When You Send An Apple Crash Report?

983. So did I.

Paul Krummenacker at Extensis draws back the curtain a little.

Takeaway: Send the crash report. People do look at it.

Technorati Tags: tech,tech tools,design tools,Extensis

[tech] Speaking of Audacity

982. Speaking of Audacity, I just took a moment to check the page I linked to in the last missive and found that they've got some notable improvements in the 1.3.x development.

Current stable version is 1.2.6, and stable it is–works with no hassle or apparent flaw.

1.3.x has new support for importing audio from QuickTime files on OS X, also a new screen-capture utility. I've not tried it yet, but I may; ever the enduser, I stay away from betas unless sufficiently intriqued by them or made absolutely necessary.

As I said, if you want to play with sound and don't want to spend no money and get a quality product anyway, Audacity's your man.

Audacity. Here. Go. Download. Use.

Technorati Tags: Audacity,Open Source,FOSS,Sound editors

[tech, design] Upside/Downside: Blogging with Adobe Contribute CS3

899.

Upsides:

• Posts in a visually pleasing WSYIYG environment
• Allows visual styling in something approximating the actual content–works very much like a word processor
• Works reasonably quickly
• Blockquotes easily stylable without having to know any HTML.
• Can copy and paste textual content from anywhere
• Is essentially an instant preview
• Works a lot like a word processor
• Technorati tags can be applied through a toolbar input box
• Blogger labels can be applied through a dropdown list

Downsides:

• Operational paradigm (sorry) has a bit of a learning curve
• Interface verbiage a little bit inscrutable (e.g., to insert a link you've copied from your address box, you need to do Insert>Link>Browse To Web Page... why not just "Create Link" or something like that)
• Technorati tags appear at the top of the post and cannot be cut and pasted to the bottom (at least not obvously). It can be inserted though the Insert>HTML Snippet command
• Blogger labels can only be chosen from; it is not obvious how they can be created, Additonally, the dropdown does not scroll automatically; it must be scrolled, only one line at a time, through leetle tiny scroll arrows at the bottom of the dropdown. Scroll wheel has no effect.
• Biggest drawback: though you can drag and drop/copy and past/browse and select images into Blogger posts, they are not actually uploaded to Blogger and are considered local files, therefore a Blogger post with images will not publish with them.

The big downsides aren't exactly show-stoppers, but they do require an extra step, reducing effiency–to really facilitate blogging, the interface should allow the author, as nearly as possible, to just make thier moves naturally and simply, and by this, I mean if I want an image from my desktop to be published to my blog, I just move it in and it happens–SHIPOOPI! Same with labels and with Technorati tags.

Since I'm already making an extra move by insisting to use Safari to do my business (I have to either go to Firefox to make image uploading easier or use the HTML view in Blooger in Safari to style and paste text) it's something of a zero sum.

Perhaps Contribute is hackable (in the scripting/plugin way) and improvments can be added that way. That will be a further investigative path.

Update: One workaround found: the Technorati tags can be moved to the bottom of the post, and the prefix added, by a simple move in the Preferences.

Update to the Update: Since that's in the Preferences, it's not really a workaround, but just me figuring out how to do something correctly, wouldn't it be then?

Tags: Blogger, Adobe Contribute CS3, Creative Suite 3, Blogging, Blogging tools

[tech] It's 4th And Loooong for SCO

898. According to the buzz, the bell may be about to toll on The SCO Group's assault on Open Source. From Wikipedia:

On August 10, 2007, Judge Dale Kimball, hearing the SCO v. Novell case, ruled that "...the court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights". Novell were awarded summary judgments on a number of claims, and a number of SCO claims were denied. SCO was instructed to account for and pass to Novell an appropriate portion of income relating to SCOSource licences to Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. A number of matters are not disposed of by Judge Kimball's ruling, and the outcome of these are still pending.

It's not looking good for Darl.

I wonder if SCO Group's business plan allows for a plan B in case the lawsuits didn't work out?

Surf the world of news via Google with search term "SCO Novell"

Tags: The SCO Group, SCO v. Novell, Darl McBride, UnixWare, Open Source, Linux, Unix

[design, tech] Mapping the Bits

877. An underrated tool for creative expression is MSPaint. Seriously.

Remember (well, okay, not all of you, back when Macs were new and people were trying to press both Intels and Macs into service to create art? Certanly all of us remember the friendly "hello." we were all introduced to.

MacPaint (and its PC analogue, MSPaint) were (and are) bitmap editors. Hardly advanced and far from sophisticated, but with applied manipulation and diligence, you could come up with some rather surprising images. The number of surprisingly apt digital sketches were quite impressive.

Now, with programs such as Illustrator, Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Corel DRAW!, &c, &c, artworks of stunning complexity and amazing effects can be performed. One might think that people are no longer trying much interesting in elementary bitmap editors. One would be wrong.

For instance, via YouTube (what isn't these days), here's nine minutes of drawing a Lamborghini in MSPaint, with a guitar-driven soundtrack:



And here's a fellow drawing a rather realistic-looking iPod (similar to the one I own):



And, just to push the envelope, here's someone doing the Mona Lisa:



The neat thing about MSPaint is it's a gimme that goeth with the Windows system. Macintosh, at least my version, actually had some nice bundled goodies but MacPaint has gone the way of something that is now extinct (though I think you can find an OS X port somewhere, I had one once, but it ran badly). For OS X users there is this nifty freeware program called Paintbrush, which has the same level of functionality.

This and a graphics tablet, and you can do some wicked cool things.

Update: There's also another free bitpusher, Seashore, for MacOS X. Free, has layers and some advanced effect features–it's like MSPaint or MacPaint to the next level. Based on the GIMP, but reduced to just the basics, Ma'am. Downside; does not save as BMP. Upsides:Saves as JPG, JPG2000, GIF, TIFF, and XGF (GIMP's native format)

Tags: design, tech, drawing programs, MSPaint, computer art

[tech] iPhone Armageddon

867. I don't know about anyone else, but if I were an iPhone, I'd be running to hide.

Everyone's out to get me.

If they aren't killing me with a hammer, they're throwing me in a blender, siccing a pro wrestler on me, or just jacking me apart with a screwdriver.

Since I'm not an iPhone, I'll just thank my lucky stars and consider myself lucky; things could be worse.

You touch my iPod, though, you'll come back with a bloody stump. Depend on it.

Tags: iPhone, iPhone smash, Will It Blend, tech

[tech] How I Turned $600 Worth of iPhone into $1.50 Worth of Junk

854 It was going to happen eventually. I'm just surprised it'd happened so fast:



Cringe-inducing, considering the cost.

What was even more interesting was the reactions from the people who disapproved of the movie maker doing that. Amazingly hostile. I'm thinking–he wants to destroy the iPhone? It's his money...

Tags: iPhone, iPhone Smash