Hopefully Dylan will forgive the play on Wheels on Fire but I just wanted to do one last post of the year and put two sites on your New Year's Eve list:
The Biggar Bonfire: We attended this event several times when we lived in Scotland and it is well worth braving the cold. The pipes, the bars, the flames, the smiling faces. What's not to love about this Hogmanay event.
The Balls of Fire: We never made it to this one, but again you have the pipes, the crowds, and flames. Only this time they are swirling balls of fire, proceeding down the main road and into the harbor. There's a webcam and more on the site.
So let's hope these and all the other end-of-year festivities around the world usher in a New Year that is brighter than the one that is ending. Here's to a great 2010 for all!
Back to the Future of Cars? Test Driving Jeremy Dean's Futurama
And now for something completely different, on the road. Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the only economic crisis in the last 100 years that was worse than the one we're enduring today, a strange new form of road vehicle emerged for the first time: the horse-drawn automobile. In America they were dubbed Hoover carts or Hoover wagons, after Herbert Hoover, who was president when the depression hit and was widely criticized for not doing more to prevent or alleviate the suffering it brought. In Canada these vehicles were called Bennett Buggies after that country's Prime Minister Bennett who was in power from 1930 to 1935 (and of whom it has been said "his own wealth (often openly displayed) and impersonal style alienated many struggling Canadians").
A collision of two phenomena conspired to put these strange hybrid contraptions on the road: a. the rapid growth of automobile ownership in the 1920s, notably the Ford Model T, and b. the rapid drop in the affordability of gasoline during a time of mass unemployment and asset devaluation. The result? A sizable population of people who owned cars--having bought them with cash--but were unable to afford the fuel to run them. Because the bottom had fallen out of the market for used cars, some people figured why not take out the engine, add some poles, and harness up a horse? The hardware, wetware, and skill-set required for this conversion were readily available, particularly in more rural areas. (And pretty much all of North America was, at that time, more rural than it is today.)
Now imagine being shot forward in time from 1930 to 2010 and the first thing you see is a cart horse shackled to a Cadillac Escalade or GMC Hummer. Would you be surprised? Probably not.Such is the thinking behind the recent conceptual works of contemporary artist Jeremy Dean. Few automobiles capture the excesses of the first decade of the 21st century better than the Hummer and the Escalade. They are both the apotheosis of consumerism and the antithesis of sustainability. And the juice that keeps them going--petroleum--is liable to such violent price swings that we live our lives just one act of terrorism away from prices that most people could not afford.
As an artist, Jeremy has always sought new ways to bring our reality into perspective. As a documentary filmmaker, Jeremy has spent a lot of time uncovering and studying images of the past. So when he encountered Hoover carts during research on a documentary, Jeremy couldn't shake the image and its potent symbolism. And while the world of today is clearly very different from the world of the 1930s, the realization that we have been pursuing a life-style we cannot afford to sustain is even more pressing today than it was 80 years ago. Jeremy has dubbed this project The Futurama of Cars.
You can see more examples of the works here. And you can help Jeremy realize the Futurama of Cars: an actual 21st Century Hoover Cart that Jeremy plans to drive through New York in March, 2010. That's right, a working horse-drawn vehicle based on a Hummer or Escalade. So heads up if you own one of these vehicles--Jeremy is accepting donations, and he doesn't mind if the motor is blown. And heads up any chop shops who want some free publicity for helping make this dramatic horsepower conversion.
Indeed, anyone can help move this project forward by visiting the KickStarter web site. Check out the wild project video and consider making a pledge. There are all sorts of weird and wonderful rewards on offer for pledging, including Warranties, Registration, and Titles.
As works of art, these 21st century Hoover carts take our minds on the road, on a journey through concepts like wealth and poverty, excess and indulgence, environmentalism and sustainability, waste and frugality, form and function, practicality and absurdity, art and atifice, design and desire. Why not come along for the ride
Opera to the Rescue? Definitely worth a listen
I just spent my evening at the Opera. Not the fat lady sings kind of opera, more of a browser with wings kind of thing that just happens to go by the name Opera. And I am really impressed (even though I'm tone deaf and can't tell a libretti from a Lambretta).I have checked out the Opera browser several times in the past and each time was impressed at the way successive versions added new features, often ahead of IE (not hard to do) and Firefox (quite a bit harder but Opera has been doing it). However, I did not feel compelled to make it my default browser. When Google Chrome came along, seemingly faster than Firefox and with good stability, I made it my default browser. The recent emergence of the Mac version of Chrome into beta meant I could run it on both of my work boxes (one a PC, the other a Mac--yes, when it comes to tech--I go both ways).
But the latest Opera, version 10.10, has really impressed me and may become my new default. I was particularly interested in a combination of three capabilities that might be unique to me, but could make a difference to many other users.
First capability: An integrated email application that can read Eudora files. (For the younger generation, Eudora was a very popular email application last century and I still use it today because it's reliable and easily searchable. Unfortunately, the makers of Eudora abandoned it many years ago and it's starting to show its age.) I've been looking for a Eudora replacement and Opera might be it. I had been reluctant to give up Eudora's trusty filter/folder system of message management but Opera replicates it while using a more flexible system of "views."
Second, there is a Turbo feature that speeds up browsing on slow connections. Regular readers of this blog will know that my home office connection to the Internet is via satellite, specifically HughesNet, which can be very slow at times. Tada! Opera Turbo helps me cope with that.
Third, regular readers of this blog know that HughesNet makes it hard to access my own blog. (Something so weird I made a video about it.) But guess what, Opera sees my blog even when Firefox and Safari and Chrome and IE7/8 do not! Yes, it sounds crazy, but it is verifiable (a video of this phenomenon in action is coming). So there is no other way to put it: Opera works when the others don't. (And no prizes for figuring out with which browser I am writing this.)
There's a bunch more cool stuff in Opera 10.10 that I have not fully explored yet, including file and photo sharing and audio streaming (the audio thing was the source of the "worth a listen pun" in the blog post title). Even though Opera does not have a large share of the notebook and desktop browser market, the company is clearly pushing ahead with innovations and picking up enthusiastic users in the process. The company is also well established in the mobile and embedded browser market (check out the browser in your Nintendo Wii).
Over the next week or so I will be checking out more features and, if this whole HughesNet workaround capability pans out, I will be posting my impressions here.
The Cost of Windows 7
Under the clever headline "Microsoft's Non-Family Values" blogger Dave Methvin lays out the logic behind charging $120 to upgrade a single Windows XP or Windows Vista machine to Windows 7. After all, Apple only charges about $25 for an OS upgrade (and offers attractive "family" pricing for multiple licenses). Not surprisingly the answer to "Why does Microsoft charge so much?" boils down to "Because it wants to and it can." The reason Microsoft wants to is the alliance--some would say "unholy alliance"--between hardware makers and Microsoft.
Basically, if it costs $120 and a bunch of hassles to get your old notebook running Windows 7, and a new notebook can be had for $400 with Windows 7 installed, there's a good chance you will opt to buy the new notebook, which helps the hardware makers--keeps the production lines moving and the cash flow coming--and helps Microsoft justify the huge fees it charges the many different computer makers who need the rights to install Windows 7. Of course, that $400 notebook is usually an under-powered teaser model and the PC makers hope you will go for the $1,000 models once they get you in a buying mood.
A good example is my own Sony VAIO that I bought new with XP installed about 4 years ago. No way is Sony going to support Windows 7 on that machine. Sony wants me to buy a new machine. Period. (And if the refusal to support Windows 7 is not incentive enough, Sony apparently has a backup plan that consists of making the fan get so loud and annoying I am forced to retire the thing or lose my sanity.)
Unfortunately, unholy alliances being what they are, Microsoft can't offer a $20 per PC upgrade deal even if it wanted to. The hardware makers would scream foul. They would lose out on sales of new hardware AND face demands for drivers and support and all the related hassles that hardware makers hate to deal with (mainly because they are expensive).
How ironic that I have a reliable 4 year-old computer that delivers entirely adequate performance under Windows XP or 7 yet is a dissappointment to the company that made it. Reminds me of the car industry.
FCC chairman wants USF to apply to broadband
This is a positive development: FCC chairman wants USF to apply to broadband - FierceBroadbandWireless.
Beware the Impression of Speed in Windows 7
Any experienced Windows user knows that fresh installs of past versions of Windows were pretty nippy compared to two-year old install. Sadly, a machine that has been running the same Windows 2000, XP or Vista install for two years is likely to be slowed down by a hugely bloated registry and all kinds of DLLs and taskbar apps and startup items and such, even if you've been using a registry cleaner and optimizer.
A new Windows machine is bound to seem faster, as is a new install. This is particularly tricky for XP users because you can't upgrade XP to 7, you have to do a fresh install of Windows 7. And when you do that you wipe the slate clean, so to speak, and things sure do seem faster. The big question is: How long will that last?
I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has answers to that. Is there anything in the design of Windows 7 that would lead us to hope it remains fast? Just click on COMMENTS below to share your thoughts.
Web Site Building Bits and Tips
Just a quick post to share some links you might find helpful if you are building a new web site. I've been helping several folks with their web site aspirations lately and came across these, in no particularly order:
First, how about a menu? It is pretty easy to create a nice top level menu using css and an unordered css. The tricky bit is a drop-down menu. That link will take you to a very simple but effective design which requires very little code.
If you are familiar with jquery you can use it to create a menu like the one on the left. The html/css/js code for doing this is available from this page, linked here. But what if you want to sketch out a complete web page design with menus and page elements?
For this there is a tool called Mocking Bird that you might want to check out (works best on a very broadband connection). Another new tool that might be worth looking into is: www.wix.com. It's a web site that let's you build a web site that uses Flash (like Mocking Bird, Wix is an example of an application delivered as a service, in other words, Software as a Service or SaaS, just like Salesforce or the marketing product that I've been working on: Monetate).
With these two web design apps you can create pages or edit templates using a web-based interface. As with many SaaS offerings the feature set is continually evolving so I suggest you check them out rather than rely on my giving you a snapshot of their capabilities.
When you are designing web pages, the grid approach can be very helpful. Here is an article on grid-based design that I found useful, full of links to related content (I am finding Smashing Magazine a good resource in general, for everything from WordPress themes and buttons, to coding tips).
The ability to draw a design on a grid and then have an application generate the required CSS is a huge boon to web site developers. Here's an article that has links to 15 ways of accomplishing this. (What a difference these would have made when I first started messing with CSS layouts.) Another solution, not on the list of 15, is 960 Grid System. As the name implies, 960GS simplifies designing around a width of 960 pixels, which is a common choice these days for page width.
Finally, for this post, I want to mention XAMPP, software that let's you test a lot of stuff on your Windows laptop or desktop before putting it on a Linux/UNIX web site. With XAMPP you get the ability to run Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP). Of course, this then gives you the ability to install WordPress on your Windows box which is very handy when developing sites in WordPress. Fro Mac OS X users there is similar functionality in MAMP.
Happy page building!
First, how about a menu? It is pretty easy to create a nice top level menu using css and an unordered css. The tricky bit is a drop-down menu. That link will take you to a very simple but effective design which requires very little code.If you are familiar with jquery you can use it to create a menu like the one on the left. The html/css/js code for doing this is available from this page, linked here. But what if you want to sketch out a complete web page design with menus and page elements?
For this there is a tool called Mocking Bird that you might want to check out (works best on a very broadband connection). Another new tool that might be worth looking into is: www.wix.com. It's a web site that let's you build a web site that uses Flash (like Mocking Bird, Wix is an example of an application delivered as a service, in other words, Software as a Service or SaaS, just like Salesforce or the marketing product that I've been working on: Monetate).
With these two web design apps you can create pages or edit templates using a web-based interface. As with many SaaS offerings the feature set is continually evolving so I suggest you check them out rather than rely on my giving you a snapshot of their capabilities.
When you are designing web pages, the grid approach can be very helpful. Here is an article on grid-based design that I found useful, full of links to related content (I am finding Smashing Magazine a good resource in general, for everything from WordPress themes and buttons, to coding tips).
The ability to draw a design on a grid and then have an application generate the required CSS is a huge boon to web site developers. Here's an article that has links to 15 ways of accomplishing this. (What a difference these would have made when I first started messing with CSS layouts.) Another solution, not on the list of 15, is 960 Grid System. As the name implies, 960GS simplifies designing around a width of 960 pixels, which is a common choice these days for page width.
Finally, for this post, I want to mention XAMPP, software that let's you test a lot of stuff on your Windows laptop or desktop before putting it on a Linux/UNIX web site. With XAMPP you get the ability to run Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP). Of course, this then gives you the ability to install WordPress on your Windows box which is very handy when developing sites in WordPress. Fro Mac OS X users there is similar functionality in MAMP.
Happy page building!
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