Font Recognition

This is great. WhatTheFont takes a scan of a typeface and tells you what it is. Haven't tested it yet, but if it works that's handy. (Thanks again, Loz).

Now if it could only tell me what typeface to use in my design...

 

A whopping 100 visitors

After all that went into getting the Saul Bass material into the Sunday Times, The Month CD-Rom, and the rush to get the site live in time, it gave me a measly 100 visitor -- 20% of whom were probably friends and family I asked to look at the site.

The reason is simple. My URL came at the end of a 15-page digital feature. Even today, people don't know how to design for interactive media. I doubt anyone had the patience to read to the end of the article. Most likely they flipped through and watched the movie clips.

Lesson learnt. Next time, I'll make sure to play more of an active role in the production.

 

Check this out

This Torrentocracy thing looks pretty cool. Thanks Loz.

Maybe I'll have a chance to figure it out when I have free time again.

 

A Good Business Mistake

It seems I've been thinking about my finances in the wrong way. I set up a spreadsheet to track my budget and potential revenue and profit from the DVD sales.

All this time, I've been getting stressed as the profits have been shrinking due to increasing cost of production (which I had under-estimated). But -- what hadn't occurred to me is that what I am calculating as profit is based on my already having recouped my initial investment. So what goes into my bank account after all the sales is the full initial investment + any profit.

That makes a huge difference. So now, come September I should have replenished the coffers and have enough working capital for my second project.

 

We're live!!

At 3pm yesterday, I didn't have a design for my website, DESIGNonDVD.com which I needed to put up in time for the Sunday Times who, today, will be putting a feature and a url link for 'Bass on Titles' into their CD-Rom, The Month.

16 hours and half a bottle of Jack Daniels later -- the website is live.

Ok, I have to admit, I took a break to go to Plastic People at 2am and a nap afterwards until 6am -- but it was still a marathon.

Not saying the website is brilliant, but it's certainly the fastest site I've ever created.

 

Beyond the Blog

As I get back into blogging (read: procrastinating doing the stuff I should be doing)-- I've realised the limitations of the Blog. It needs to evolve into a collaborative publishing system.

Blogs should really fuse with Groups. Yes, I know you can scrapple together some stuff with RSS and multiple users on a given blog -- but I'm talking about actual publish -- with editorial staff.

Some blogs have made a pretty good attempt at it. Like BoingBoing. But it's not like reading the news.

In my ideal world, I would be able to read a paper assembled by all my friends. Full of their comments, neatly categorised into editorial compartments, like 'Technology', 'Arts & Culture'.

Again, the technology is there, but no one has made it into a neat little, easy-to-use, package like Blogger has done for blogs.

 

Small biz tip #1

When starting a small business a few funny things pop up from time to time. Like a vendor asked me to send a purchase order. "Sure," I said. Then I realised I'd have to figure out what the format for one of those should be.

Here are a handy set of templates from Microsoft. I don't know why they are in the Mactopia section. Maybe Microsoft thinks that PC users are too savvy to need such things.

I think this post might spawn a blog of it's own. Or rather, it may breathe new life into the Kaigani blog which has been defunct since my travelogue. It might be interesting to chronicle all the stuff I'm doing as I start a new business. I certainly wish someone had left me some breadcrumbs.

 

Quote of the Day

"The thing about dust is... after the first three years in a house, dust builds up. Then after that, the amount that floats up is equal to the amount that settles -- so you don't need to dust really, after the first three years."

Filthy.

 

Freeview -- that's half right.

We thought we had a good idea to get good reception by trying out this Freeview thing. After all, we don't need that many more channels, and who can resist digital TV for a one-off cost.

Well, unfortunately the bad reception on regular broadcast translates to bad reception over Freeview. So we've found ourselves with BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3 -- less channels than before.

As they say... you get what you pay for.

 

LCP Student Show

Through Friday, 25 June.

Chocolate Factory 51-53
Southwark Street
London bridge tube station

(Thanks Jyo.)

 

The Flat of Tomorrow - part one

Nico and I are creating the Flat of Tomorrow!

Full of networked, wireless, high-tech goodness.

I've just completed a big piece. I rigged Nico's desktop machine with a video card and firewire card. Then I connected the video-out into a device called 'One For All' which has a transmitter and receiver for composite video signals. So the video signal is then beamed from the mezzanine, down to the living room, mirroring the computer monitor display. I can then hook up my external hard-drive via the firewire ports.

Why do all this, you ask? To watch downloaded Anime on TV of course!!

 

All day Latte

So Nico got an espresso machine, and I'm realising that every civilised household should have one. Now I can have a latte whenever I want -- not just when Starbucks is open.

 

New Blogs

Some more people bloggin'

Matia
Caroline

Ever since Blogger got bought by Google, it really kicks ass. It used to be unreliable, but now it is like a real application.

Also this week Yahoo! mail upgraded accounts to 100MB, and if you paid (like Matia) you get 2GB.

Amazing thing. The internet.

 

The new flat concept

So Nico and I are trying to come up with a concept for how we want to do up the flat after I move in.

Actually, let me back up -- I'm moving from here to here. Switching places with Alain in the flat he shared with Nico.

Ok -- so we're trying to figure out how to do up the flat. Last weekend, Nico said something about putting down fake grass as carpet in the corner, and I thought he was off his head.

But the more I thought about it, the more it worked on me. We can make a little faux-outdoor area indoors. With some surreal stuff like plastic rabbits and giant mushroom chairs. Maybe I'm off my head now.

 

Cool links

Stuff that was sent to me last week:

Breakdancing Transformer
Bang Bang Bang!
Newgrounds

 

I'm a real boy!

m****pollen is no longer from the land of make-believe. It's now an incorporated company -- m****pollen limited.

 

Let's get it on!

This is the best piece of political propaganda I've seen:

http://emogame.com/bushgame.html

 

Dude, where's my Karma?

WTF? I've been burgled twice, had a terrible experience clubbing, hurt my neck in Yoga and last night I discovered that the strange crackling noise coming from my kitchen was a mouse munching through a bag of expensive pasta that I really really wanted to try.

And now, my bad karma seems to have spilled from the physical world into the virtual world. Bernie, who I haven't spoken to in a while, emailed me to tell me that I'd sent him 5 spam virus emails.

So -- advice please. Do I need to drink some chicken blood? Shove a crystal up my bum? How do I stop this before the locust plagues and boils reach me?

 

Ready to move

The closer I get to moving the more things I find about my current flat that irritate me. For instance, due to the paper thin walls, I get to hear what it's like on the other side of the toilet. Brings new meaning to 'taking the piss'.

 

Now playing

Having dug all my old CDs out of storage, and listening to my old favourite Roots albums and classics like Main Source - Lookin' at the Front Door -- it's been a hip-hop revival at Casa del St. Johns.

Here's what I'm listening to...

OkayPlayer: True Notes, Vol. 1
Produced by The Roots. Let's face it, there is nothing by the Roots that I won't go out and get without thinking twice.

RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke
Another guy that does a cool sort of hip-hop/rock fusion. Fits my taste perfectly at the mo.

Mos Def - EP
I'm not exactly sure what it is called, and where you can buy this, but let's just say you can get it if you can get it -- and you should get it.