Bulb busting light source invented | The Register

Researchers working on organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) have made a critical jump that could finally call lights out time for the humble bulb.

I have been waiting for news like this since I read that 20% of the US' energy usage comes from light bulbs. I have tried compact fluorescent bulbs, but they give off a horrible light; and the full spectrum versions are too bright and too much like daylight - very weird when you are indoors (not to mention being really expensive). I have been looking at LED bulbs, but they are not bright enough yet except in groups (and still expensive).

So the 2 big questions about this are … when and how much?

(Via The Register.)

Just upgraded my home ADSL connection - 5Mbps (with pretty much unlimited bandwidth). Beautiful. And at work … between 12 of us … 1/2 a meg. Nice!

So here it is, proof that there is something of an art scene in Southampton, even if it is underground (haha, groan, sorry poor joke).

Technorati Tags:
art, Southampton

First up … Synergy - you may have heard of it; it allows you to connect 2 or more computers to each other to share keyboard and mouse (and clipboard - allowing copy-paste across the machines). Not totally straightforward to set up but totally worth it.

Which leads me to the second; Platypus. Once I had got my Synergy set up right, I wanted a way of running it without going into Terminal; just double click. Platypus allows you to take a script - php, shell, python, applescript, whatever, and turn it into an application. Very neat.

Enjoy. SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
mac

So, I had a thought about using quicktime in Quartz Composer. I wondered if you could use a Quicktime plugin in order to use 3D objects in QC. So I downloaded the FBX plugin (from Alias) for QT and a model.

I can create a QT movie of the model (ie a .mov file) which works well inside QT - with full interaction. Import it into QC though and it works for a few seconds then you just get a white screen.

Here‘s what I think is happening; the movie imports correctly and starts playing correctly, then QC grabs it and tries to render it as frames - which obviously won’t work. So then, I have a new feature request - show Quicktime as Quicktime!

Technorati Tags:
quartz composer, musing, osx, experiments

Just looked at the front page of this blog and saw lots of TEXT. So here's a couple of images! Also here because I liked them and haven't quite known what to do with them. They are both screen grabs from a coolhunting video.

By day, I am a web developer; I am of the old school in that I do pretty much all of my web page creating in a text editor. There are however things that I get very tired of writing (not to mention can't always remember off the top of my head). For instance, a php debug command that I use all the time. Or a basic html page template including links to css file and correct encoding. So I use text snippets.

I realise that you can do snippets of text using Quicksilver (I used to do that - create a folder full of text clipping documents, then select the one you want and use the ‘paste’ QS action). But there is a better way.

Check out the unbelievably useful TextPander from the superb (and generous - the app is donationware) Peter Maurer.

Basically it works like this - you create a snippet of text (including images if you want), you assign an abbreviation (eg: I use htmlpage for my html page template), and away you go. When you type the abbreviation in any application, the snippet is put there instead - SO USEFUL! There are extras like where the cursor goes after the text has been pasted in, and automatically adding date/time etc, and automatically adding in special characters.

Try it, I reckon it saves me upwards of 5 minutes a day. Beautiful.

SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
mac, osx

Just found this one …

Ensure you have the latest version of Quicksilver, install the ‘User Interface Access’ plugin and make sure ‘Enable access for assistive devices’ is checked in the ‘Universal Access’ preference pane (in System Preferences).

(You may need to ensure that Proxy Objects is selected in the Catalog (hint: it's under Quicksilver)

Now, invoke Quicksilver and type ‘curapp’ :- it should bring up the ‘Current Application’ proxy object. Tab and type ‘menu’. You now have 3 choices - try ‘Show Menu Items’ - this is a searchable list of all the items in the current applications menus.

one less reason to reach for the mouse!

SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
mac, osx, quicksilver

Click through for 3 new videos (these are all up on my youtube page).

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer, experiments