Martin Young - Web Designer
September 28, 2007
Spiffy, ain’t it? I’ve been using one of the old iMac keyboards (clear plastic, black keys) but decided to treat myself.
It feels beautiful to use - identical to my MacBook keyboard (which I love) - and a thousand times better than the old keyboard. It looks a million bucks too, and makes the old keyboard look like a relic from the 80s.
I nearly waited another couple of weeks for one of the Bluetooth ones but decided (a) I wanted the numeric keypad (the wireless ones don’t have one), and (b) I wasn’t that fussed about having a single cable on my desk given that my mouse is a wireless one.
The mouse wireless thingy slots nicely into one of the USB ports and will live there permanently (you can see it in the first photo), while the other USB port can power my digital camera when I need to upload a new batch of photos. Strangely the port doesn’t power my 2gb USB key though. Not sure why.
Yet another cool, functional product from Apple that makes me feel happy that I bought it. Would I have felt the same way about one of these? Probably not.
Posted by Marty in Apple
September 26, 2007
Just discovered this when I accidentally clicked the Safari icon instead of the iTunes one on the old iMac that I use as a print and music server … the Apple Start page.
It’s a classic homepage with news, content snippets and so on, but it isn’t the page that loads when you go to apple.com. That’s this one:
So why have they done that?
The homepage concentrates on selling three or four key products to prospective Apple customers. (Underneath the massive Touch image are four content snippets similar to the ones on the Start page.) At the moment it’s all about the iPod Touch. Yesterday the huge picture front and centre was a colourful array of iPod Nanos.
The startpage offers a spread of information about all things Apple in order to cross-sell to existing customers - the page is the default page for new Safari users, and therefore for new Apple computer owners.
This technique is something I’ve been wanting to implement at my workplace for a while. Prospects and customers. Time to make it happen.
Posted by Marty in Web & Tech, Web design
And his first post is a long, entertaining ramble about Smartphones.
www.stephenfry.com/blog
For the uninitiated, Stephen is an English actor who you might have seen as Melchett in Blackadder, one half of Fry and Laurie, or Jeeves in Jeeves and Wooster. He’s also an author, and judging by his first blog post, a technophile.
His regular website is at www.stephenfry.com.
Posted by Marty in People, Web & Tech
September 22, 2007
My wife wants to buy me a new surfboard this November. Thankfully she’s given me the tip already so that I can take some time to choose a board that I’ll really enjoy.
My surfboard history is pretty typical. In 1992 I bought my first board - a 6′6″ thruster. It wasn’t one of those really thin ones (that was board #2), but it definitely wasn’t the board for a rank novice, although I didn’t know that at the time. Still, I had some fun on it trying to surf the beachies at Jan Juc, Anglesea, and Torquay.
In about 1995 I bought an even smaller board - a super-thin Rip Curl 6′2″ thruster. I was 23 and it was all about the look, but because the board was only about 18″ wide and 1 3/4″ thick I could hardly paddle it and certainly couldn’t catch waves on it. What a tosser.
When I sold that board I pretty much gave surfing away for a few years, until in 2002 my friend John bought a Trigger Brothers Stubby (aka hybrid) and couldn’t stop talking about how much fun he was having. My lovely wifey bought me one soon after, and the fun factor was back. Mine’s 7′0″ long, 22″ wide and 3″ thick with plenty of volume in the tail, which makes it dead easy to catch waves on and in turn lets you concentrate on improving your surfing rather than fighting to time the wave properly. Suddenly surfing was fun again.
Anyway. Today I’m no world-beater, but I’m starting to look for more speed down the line of the wave and more manoueverability for turns, so it’s time for a new board. I’ve had some good chats with Ross the owner of Rasta in Barwon Heads and exchanged emails with Murray Bourton of Bourton Shapes, and I’ve narrowed it down to these designs:
The Fish (Rasta)
The Flying Turk (Rasta)
The Big Bat (Bourton)
The Standard Quad (Bourton)
Ross reckons a 6′8″ Turk will be the most natural progression from my current board - it’s a similar shape but all dimensions are slightly smaller, which means less bulk for me to turn.
Murray says the Big Bat series has proven to be most successful for those in foam reduction mode. He suggested a 6′8″ Big Bat for my weight. He also offered up his High Performance Retro, which is a similar shape but according to him “doesn’t have the zing and grip of the BB”.
The Fish is in there as even though it’s a bit more radical (how 80s is that word?!), everything I read about them says “fast, solid and fun”, and you can’t go past that if you (like me) are looking for a high wave count in 2′ to 5′ surf.
The standard Quad’s there because even though it’ll be a significant change from my current board, when I’m used to it it’s likely to take me further than the other three in terms of my surfing ability. It’s more of a high performance board than the others.
At the moment I’m leaning towards the Fish At the moment I’m leaning towards the Flying Turk or the Big Bat, but I’ll have a few more chats to the experts in other board stores to make sure. Either way I’m looking forward to plenty of great waves this spring and summer.
Posted by Marty in Surfing, Web design
September 16, 2007
Late this afternoon I decided to make a wishlist of techo stuff. So I went to the Aussie Apple store to get some prices. Here’s what I found.
Somebody’s made a boo-boo. Also, when I click the Nano link (using Firefox) the browser crashes. Hmmmmm. Just goes to show that even the gurus have trouble sometimes.
Posted by Marty in Apple, Web & Tech
Thought I’d briefly mention a web site I completed for a friend last week … www.imadeapromise.com.au.
It’s a very simple six-page site to support a book - I Made A Promise - which will be in bookstores in November. The author, Danny Smith, wanted information about the book and the contributors, a simple Buy Now function (via PayPal), a way for would-be contributors to submit a story for a second book, and an email contact link.
I decided to set up the look and feel to be consistent with the book’s cover (which also made things simpler than having to constuct an entirely new design), coded the site by hand, added in Google Analytics, and set up a new hosting account and two email addresses for Danny. The site validates as XHTML Strict, uses CSS for layout, and renders properly in IE5.5, IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari.
I haven’t read the book but it looks like it would make a good Christmas present. Just $25 + $5 postage within Australia. Go and buy one!
Posted by Marty in People, Web & Tech, Web design
September 15, 2007
Update to last post: after a bit of searching, some instruction-following and a minor configuration issue I’ve successfully implemented the Shashin plugin on my family and friends blog - it’s a powerful little plugin for displaying your Picasa photos on your Wordpress blog.
I like using Wordpress. It’s waaaaaay more configurable than I found TypePad to be, free, and has a lively user community full of people willing to help each other.
All you need is a web host (I’m a happy Jumba customer) and a bit of HTML/CSS knowledge if you want to customise your blog’s look and feel away from one of the standard templates.
Posted by Marty in Web & Tech
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