San Francisco 3D design and visualization studio Transparent House has created a visualization entitled “Anatomy of Apple Design” as a tribute 34 years of Apple design, starting from the Apple I and leading up to the new iPad. Read More at AppleInsider.com

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The video starts off jittery as it’s squeezed into MP4 format at way too high a file-size than most internet users can squeeze down their pipes. Presented by a funky designer, a boring developer guy and a blonde woman, the video trails along as we eventually hear how they’re talking to hardware manufacturers about making the hardware ‘really great’ to give the users the impression that they should walk into a store and want a ‘Windows phone’. I’m sorry, but that’s pathetic. Come up with a better name than a ‘Windows phone’ and we’ll talk.

Next we get to see the prototype device charging off USB in his hand, he rubs and taps and pinches (pardon the pun) the UI to get where he wants to in a seemingly invisible layout you’re supposed to intuitively “get”. I can’t make head nor tail of the thing. All this relying on social network integration and stuff is old hat. There’s only a small number of people who will ever call or text their entire Facebook fan-base, so why the hell would you want all of them appearing in what appears to be an address book? And why is Microsoft talking about Facebook? Haven’t they got their own thing called ‘Live’? Are they that willing to admit that the clunky collection of software online they call ‘Live’ is crap that they’re not talking about it but instead talking about Facebook?

I stopped watching this video around about 3 minutes in. The awkwardness of the acting was one reason, the sheer boring-ness of it was another. Mostly though, this thing isn’t gonna hit the shelves any time soon. It’s miles away from being polished (if it ever will be) and the reference to Windows Internet Explorer Mobile being ’standards compliant’ is a laughable joke! I spend nearly every day of my working life explaining to users why they should under no circumstances use Internet Explorer for the same reason that killed their PCs that I fixed. It’s complete rubbish.

To watch the whole video (if you’re that sad and boring) click here: MSDN Video (Channel 9)

I recommend reading the stupid comments – idiots who won’t admit to themselves that the iPhone is great. Or even that Blackberry kicks this UI’s ass. It might look slick, but having to swipe through 7 different kinds of smoke to get to where you want in your address book will piss people off no end. I’m surprised at Microsoft. They’ve had the guts of 3 years living with the iPhone and this is as much as they’ve come up with. A bad take on a Zune phone. And their dependency on lowercase characters is bizarre. That’s so early 21st century.

Microsoft now has some options. Shitcan the Windows 7 Phone OS and concentrate on the few customers who can actually bear their horrid Windows Mobile 6 platform or risk alienating those who want to move from Blackberry but don’t have a Facebook account and want a nice looking device. This is a complete waste of resources. Focus on fixing Windows SBS 2008 (which is a royal fucking disaster) and stop trying to do things you’re completely useless at. I mean, Microsoft are 3 years late with this thing, and if it slips any further, iPhone will have a four-year head start!

All Apple have to do to obliterate this thing is change their UI a bit. That’s it. It’s that simple. That’s likely to happen anyway this year with the next generation iPhone. The old UI is due an upgrade, and now that people are used to touch screens (there were feck all of them about before iPhone) and multi-touch and accelerometer based software, Apple can go crazy. But I’ll bet they won’t go cuckoo like Microsoft have with this. I’m galled to think what their next great idea is.

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Lee, who apparently wasn’t happy that he was put in the corner after the hurrah and hoopla of the bye-election in 2009, left Irish politics, Fine Gael, the Dáil and the history books today having spent only 9 months living the life of Reilly in Kildare Street. Seemingly annoyed that he hadn’t been brought into the inner-sanctum of the largest opposition party in Ireland after becoming their celebrity member, George went on the rampage across his old stomping ground in the media today, in an attempt to goad Fine Gael into feeling they’ve lost their Hollywood superstar. On Joe Duffy today, he waxed lyrical about his attempts to change the political system, and again with his old friend Pat Kenny in the Montrose-filmed FrontLine programme. Weak, pussy-footed questioning from Kenny resulted in a wishy-washy answers from the former south-Dublin TD. No doubt in D4 this evening, he’s checking up on what position he’ll get when he moves back into the State Broadcaster very soon. After leaving Pat’s lovely leather chair, Lee crossed the city to head to Tallaght to face the spritely terrier Vincent Browne. Browne didn’t hold back and literally tore shreds from the former Economics Editor at RTE and resulted in all credibility Lee had before going into politics being highlighted as left at the door of Fine Gael today.

Lee, who seems to have thrown all the toys out of the pram, is now likely to head back to RTÉ to try and change the world from where he once was, albeit from a lowly position for the forseeable future. In a month where the childishness of Charlie Bird was highlighted in a two-part mockumentary, we now see his former desk-mate bawling like a cranky sugar deficient child on TV this evening. He’s basically begging for some sort of remorse, that judging from those I spoke to this evening is in short supply.

So what now for Fine Gael? Will Enda finally fall on his sword in Mayo and leave Dick Bruton to take over the yo-yo supported party? Will Leo Varadkar publicly denounce Lee in an attempt to look good for the number 2 spot in Dick’s régime? Does anyone actually give a toss??

Personally, I think Lee jumped on the bandwagon thinking that Fianna Fáil would fall long ago in 2009. Having seen out the budget and the public-sector cuts and Brian Lenihan’s popularity as the seemingly do-it-all politician, Lee must’ve gotten cheesed-off at the fact that Enda hadn’t been toppled to allow Dick bring in the troops and line them up behind the potential next Finance Minister. Well, boo-hoo. George can’t feel as if he’s hard done by. Fine Gael are in opposition. They know they’re there for a while. They’re not planning to take over any time soon (because if they wanted to they’d have had plenty of opportunities in the last 9 months to force an election) so Lee picked not only the wrong party, but the completely wrong time.

And maybe, just maybe, George realised that Fianna Fáil might be onto something!

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But the iPad is a new departure in technology – an attempt to create a new market for a device that is essentially a large version of the iPod touch. While it’s powerful and clearly a very beautiful device, I fear that its failings as a whole product could damage its long-term appeal. While a lot of people have been shouting for a front-facing camera on the device, most people I know don’t even use the cameras in their laptops. Video conferencing is not popular in Europe from what I can see – mostly because of the poor broadband penetration, but also because Europeans are more texters than talkers or see-ers.

That aside, I think the iPad has a major flaw. It looks like something it’s now. The iPad is a fantastic departure from the folding laptop or the static desktop or the tiny smartphone. It’s the thing I’ve wanted since I was a little boy – a pad just like they used on Star Trek. But where it falls down for me is in the interface. I would have preferred a more unique system, or a better scaled UI unlike the almost barren-looking iPhone OS. On the demo screens Steve showed during the keynote, the app icons look miles apart, the “Slide to Unlock” button looked lost in the middle of the screen. It just looks a bit hashed together.

But would I still buy one?? Certainly. OBVIOUSLY I’d go for the one with the 3G built in. However how long it takes Irish cellular operators to introduce micro SIMs here remains to be seen. A non-3G iPad is like an iPod touch… it wants to be an iPhone but lacks the chips. I can see how the internet browsing would be amazing, and that if the evil empires that are the record companies and studios got their head out of their asses and allowed Apple to just start selling Movies and TV Shows in Europe, then it’d be a great device for viewing that stuff too. I’ve long since become annoyed with having to double-tap on sites on my iPhone when I want to browse the net for something I just thought of when I’m not near a computer… at least with the iPad I’d have a slightly easier time of viewing it.

But what strikes me as amazing is that the iPad has so much potential that few are talking about. Remember TabletPCs?? They were supposed to revolutionize the healthcare sector with doctors and nurses having these TabletPCs which would substitute the need for notepaper and pens. That was a damaging and dramatic failure because Microsoft let the software side down long before the hardware vendors and designers let the hardware side down with clumsy and ugly hardware that was brittle and bulky and with LCD screens that were unprotected. They attempted to build LapLets – Laptops that were Tablets. Apple’s product is different. A solid .5″ thin light device that can be carried anywhere. And with the App store SDK available for everyone to use – the market for an application for the healthcare sector is really just waiting to be tapped.

Another place I see this really taking off is perhaps one most think of – education. With the iBooks store, the education market is just waiting to be tapped. If the game is played right, the days of lugging large 25kg backpacks to school every day as a child will be over. Spine development globally will result in taller humans in 20 years or so thanks to the iPad. I’d love to be a kid again in a future-looking forward-facing school system which employed these amazing products. Handwriting is already becoming a pointless art for kids as they text their friends constantly in this foul abomination of text-speak, but teaching them to type properly on a device that would likely inspire them to read book, browse the internet and discover the world through their own fingertips would be a nice world.

Overall, some flaws – but massive potential. And I for one will have one. Sometime. With 3G. If the movies and tv shows come to Ireland’s iTunes store.

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Features include comment management, post and page management, category creation and photo uploading also.

Finally something to give personal blogs a more live feel after the dawn of Twitter and the popularity of Facebook.

Diarmy

In 2008, the town reached what I believe was a milestone of over 3000 revelers standing on the old 18th century bridge at the foot of Main Street, watching the clock, listening to the Fife & Drum Band and enjoying the atmosphere of a town on the edge of Europe welcoming a new year. Check out the video I made of last year’s event:

A NEW CLOCK FOR A NEW DECADE

This year, a new and improved countdown clock will be used, which I hope will be used for many years to come. The old clock I felt had its day in the sun (or sodium-filled light). So the new flip-style clock will be a sure thing that night. It’s to be switched on at 1830hrs on 31st December 2009 and will remain in place until 0030hrs.

I look forward to hearing you cheer with joy as the clock reaches zero.

Slán go fóill…

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So I’m sitting watching all this stuff, and the hours go by and as I flick through the Comcast EPG (which is awful by the way) I see one of my all-time favourite films: Goodfellas. This is a truly great film. Along with the Godfather trilogy and Casino, there are few films that grab my attention like Goodfellas. So I’m watching the bar scene before Billy Batts gets his head crushed by Pesci and I’m thinkin, there’s something wrong here. I don’t remember them saying the word ‘freakin’ in this movie. Then I realise as the bad dubbing becomes apparent, that the whole thing is dubbed! So I watch for another few minutes, and then I can watch no more. I had to turn off. This is wrong.

I notice this pattern of censorship more and more then as I flick through the channels. Words like ’shit’ are silented, as is the first part of ‘goddamn’ – yes, god! This is just wrong. Allow me to demonstrate, using some of Stephen Fry’s words:

I cannot understand how a country that made such great films as Goodfellas has let the lunatics loose and banned cursing and swearing?! What harm does it really do? Who does it really offend? Only those who love to be offended as far as I can see. Kids these days are more expressive because of those words. Maybe boardroom meetings and sales conferences would be more successful if the bullshit was cut and a swear word used to describe it! This politeness shite really pisses me off. Fuck sake, what a joke. I just felt like going out on the streets of San Francisco and cursing and swearing like a mad Irish eejit. It’s fucking stupid. Seriously. Get over it. If you can sell drugs to give men a 4-hour erection at 10 in the morning, you can show Frank Vincent tell Joe Pesci to ‘go home and get your fuckin shine box’. I was so ashamed for people who’ve never really heard that movie. I can’t imagine what they did to the film ‘In the Loop’. Don’t bother watching it if you’re reading this in the US. You won’t get how funny it is.

Fuckin sickening!

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The Magic Mouse is as Apple touts, the world’s first multi-touch mouse. It’s a slim, anodized aluminum base covered in glossy white Apple-ness hiding two delicate but tactile buttons in a seamless coating. But the real genius of this mouse it the multi-touch.

Mighty Mouse was a real departure in mouse technology, bringing the traditional rollerball from underneath the mouse, to the top providing X-Y-Z scrolling. But the Mighty Mouse was a fly in the ointment of my usability and love of the Mac. The rollerball was tiny, concealed within a glued mouse case and got ferociously dirty and cloggy over time, even with the cleanest of hands.

Magic Mouse however has a touch-sensitive surface. A swipe of the finger as one would do with the iPhone to scroll is all it takes. No ball getting dirty, and a satisfying sense of smooth scrolling thanks to the necessary Apple update. It’s fantastic. It has one multi-touch feature beyond scrolling at present, that is to navigate back and forth on a page or website using a two-finger swipe to the left or right. So far this has proved quite tricky to accomplish, but does indeed work and perhaps needs practice on my part to perfect.

So gone are the cloggy rollerballs and I welcome the new era of sleek touch. Now, where’s that tablet??

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