Linotype FontExplorer X: “FontExplorer X sets a new standard for font management software. After several relatively sad years for all font users who were looking for a professional font manager, Linotype is pleased to fill the gap with the new FontExplorer X. Font management has never been so simple, and font sorting, font shopping and font discovery are now more fun than ever. FontExplorer X gives computer users all the font functions they could need, and lets them decide how deeply they wish to dive into various font themes.”

PB FixIt - PowerBook Parts: "Will you fix my computer? No. FixIt yourself (we make it easy)!!!"

Multiple OS X Desktops using OSXvnc: "Simply put, Mulitple Desktop Sessions allow more than one person to use your Macintosh computer at the same time!

In Panther (Mac OS 10.3), Apple introduced ‘Fast User Switching’ which allowed additional users to log on to the mac without the original user logging out. Instead, the original user's desktop was carefully tucked away and could be switched back to when needed.

Now in Tiger (Mac OS 10.4) all those desktops can be accessed simultaneously using OSXvnc. This allows multiple users to be logged in, each using his or her own desktop on the same Mac"

The coolest! I get really bored of very over-designed speakers; but these just break every mold!

On Gojira's last outing, I used a fabric screen pulled taut in a steel frame. The only problem was that because the fabric was pulled by elastic cord threaded through reenforcing rings in the fabric and through the metal, it took 2 people nearly 2 hours to put together.

For our most recent gig, supporting a Speak rally (for want of a better word), to promote Fairtrade and Trade Justice, I (with the help of the lovely Steve and Mel), redesigned the screen.

Basically what you can see here is the construction of the screen; the green represents a steel tube which runs through a channel in the fabric (created by folding it over and sewing it; represented by the dashed line). Then the screen is pulled taut by loops of elastic cord (red lines) which go around the steel bar and are then clipped onto the steel frame with the s-hooks (in blue). In this way and replacing some of the original hex-nuts in the frame with wing-nuts, the screen now only takes about 5 minutes to set up and take down; and if anything has more tension than it did before!

Sorted!

Apart from general tidying up, the next iteration will probably be to weld in place any elements that don't need to come apart.

Backjumps Storms Berlin: loving this!

(Via Wooster Collective / A Celebration of Street Art.)

Interface Culture (part 2): "

Blow, by Taife Smetschka, is a breath-controlled video installation. There‘s a microphone and a projection of a clip from Billy Wilder’s film The Seven Year Itch, the scene in which Marilyn Monroe stands on the grate above the subway ventilation shaft. At first she is stationary, smiling at viewers from the screen. She doesn't begin moving until she feels a cool breeze. In blow! the breeze has to be provided by the installation visitors who must blow as hard as they can into the microphone. Marilyn's skirt flutters in the breeze as long as the visitor blows into the microphone.

Mika Satomi's Gutsie is a cyber android filled with ‘guts.’ Peeping into its interior through its eye-like hole, you can observe its intestines in motion. It will show you the places you want to see by tracking your eye gaze, but at the same time, your gaze may infect it. The interior of our body is something very private, often disgusting, and thus prohibited to be seen or to be shown. In media, visual images of our insides are often used to induce feelings of violence or disgust. Ironically, this is something that is stuffed inside everyone's body without exception.

"

(Via we make money not art.)

Interface Culture at Ars (part 1): "The Interface Culture at the Linz University of Art was founded last year by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. The programme deals with human-machine interaction to develop innovative interfaces. Went to see their works yesterday.

SoundToy, by Christina Heidecker, Harald Moser and Timm Oliver Wilks, is a 3D environment you navigate as if you were a racing car driver. During the ride you use the steering wheel to create and compose 3D sounds. You place in the space sound objects assigned to electronic beats. The speed, pitch and volume can be individually adjusted using the steering wheel and the accelerating pedal. The composition is generated by the movement and position of the sound objects with respect to one another but also by the route you select.

Recipe Table, by Istvan Lorincz, Hanna Perner-Wilson, Thomas Wagner and Andreas Zingerle, is an interactive workplace built into a kitchen countertop that enable users to intuitively search for recipes. You place the tins and bottle, vegetable and other ingredients and in return the system makes you recipe suggestions. These culinary suggestions are also depicted graphically as finished dishes on the workplace.

"

(Via we make money not art.)

The Sect of Homokaasu - The Rasterbator: “The Rasterbator is a web service which creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled into extremely cool looking posters up to 20 meters in size.”