http://www.philoye.com/ The online haunt of Phil Oye. en-us philoye@philoye.com Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:32:42 -0500 http://www.philoye.com/musings/000247.shtml I am stunned. Let me explain. I have been using Illustrator since version 6 or so to mock up web pages, it is my wireframing tool of choice. The two biggest defects have always been a lack multi-page support and no way to underline text. The workaround for the former was to either create a giant canvas and use page tiling (good for printing), use a different file for each page (good for linking into InDesign), or use layers (good for sharing items across pages in the same position, e.g., a navigation bar). I use a mixture of layers and... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000246.shtml I'm have been lamenting (here and here) the lack of a good solution for an MP3s on my home stereo. I want an MP3 player in a stereo component with a giant hard drive, outputs to a TV for the interface, and uses a hand-held remote for navigating large MP3 collections. It needs an optical drive for ripping CDs and WiFi for streaming from other computers on the network. I have considered cobbling a solution together using an old g3 laptop, a 250gb external drive, video out to my TV, and stereo out to my stereo, with maybe a cordless... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000245.shtml Well, it has been more than a month since I have updated this site--I'm sure all four of my readers have been quite disappointed with my posting performance. I blame it on the month of December. It is now January, and there are no more gifts to procure, New Year's parties to throw, family to entertain, or trips to take. In short, I'm out of excuses.... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000244.shtml It occurred to me that I hadn't updated this site with my whereabouts. I am in Australia for a couple of weeks to visit Jeni's family, as well as to do some wedding venue research... I'll be back in a week and a half.... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000243.shtml United, a company near and dear to my heart, is entering the budget airline fray with a new brand called "Ted". An article in Business 2.0 describes the crazy guerilla marketing that United did in Denver. Meet Ted is the silly site that they came up with to support the marketing efforts. I thought I had typed in the URL incorrectly at first, but no, that is indeed the real McCoy. Oh, apparently, Michael Beirut of Pentagram did the naming, which is half of UNI-TED. Get it? I like it.... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000242.shtml Three days before my 18th birthday, I received a package from Gillette. It said "Happy 18th Birthday!", and it turned out to be a Gillette Sensor razor. All stalking aside, I was always impressed with this bit of marketing. Even more-so because I've been using this same razor for more than 11 years, buying refills along the way. A very effective mailing. Today in the mail I received another package from Gillette, this time a Mach 3 Turbo razor. How stupid is that name by the way? About as ugly as the design, it turns out. Anyway, it didn't coincide... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000241.shtml On the way home from work this Halloween, the hordes of people in costumes walking the streets inspired me. Luckily, I had saved one from college for such a "costume emergency". I lacked the necessary accessories, but thankfully though out the night people supplied them for me. Fortunately for you, and unfortunately for me, Bridget was there with a camera: Photo 1 and Photo 2.... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000240.shtml I've been meaning to come up with a separate blog for interesting links that I like but don't have much to say about, similar to Jason Kottke or Todd Dominey. However, I couldn't find a way to easily fit it into my blog template (a cop out, I know), but then I thought it might be more fun to actually push the content to people. Thus a mailing list. I'm calling it NO COMMENT and it will focus on what I like, primarily, design, typography, architecture, NYC, gadgets, and photography. The frequency will initially be daily, unless there's nothing good... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000238.shtml Phantom Research Foundation is a collection of artists, designers, and musicians. That's all well and good, but they have a beautiful Flash site. I'd go as far to say that it has the best navigation I've ever seen. Stunning. The site is designed by Gizma, which also has a great little Flash site. Small and simple, but great feedback and interaction. John Friksson has a pretty nice portfolio site, notable for its retro use of horizontal scrolling. I feel like it is 1998 again. The work is pretty good too. Stockholm Design Lab is a Swedish design firm with a... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000237.shtml To continue a trend of talking about ancient applications as if they were new... I installed NetNewsWire a while ago, liked it, but stopped using it for some reason. On a whim, I thought I'd give it another spin and I have to say I don't know how I lived without it. For those that don't know, NetNewsWire uses RSS which Mark Pilgrim, in his article, What is RSS? describes as: RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. What this... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000236.shtml Despite Microsoft's (completely valid) reputation of forcing bloatware down consumer's throats, I have to say Excel is a damn fine application. While I don't keep track of all the competing products out there, nor do I have a clue which, if any, of its features are original to Excel, I (cringe) credit Microsoft. I realize that I'm talking about the original "killer app" for computers and this musing is probably 20 years too late. But in addition to all of the basic functionality that has been around since VisiCalc, three things make it a great application for me despite its... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000235.shtml Apple continues to amaze. Check out their latest iPod commerical. Totally different from their previous documentary style commercials of people on a white background. That style was instantly ripped off by another music service which we won't name. This commercial is the exact opposite. Apple did the same thing when the colorful iMacs starting to get copied, they switched their product line to white and silver. No one can touch their design style. Incidentally, the song is "Hey Mama" by Black Eyed Peas. You can grab it from the iTunes Music Store here.... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000234.shtml With the baseball playoffs upon us, I was chatting with my friend Chris and he is beyond angry at the stupidity of baseball announcers. What they pass off as wisdom leaves a lot to be desired. Not only do they rely on clichés, but they basically lie. "That pitch was high and inside" (actually, it was low and outside) or " is a great two strike hitter" (in fact, he hits .121). And the onscreen graphics aren't making up for them. Being able to see the game in the first place is fantastic, but beyond that, there's really not much... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000233.shtml A few links have been cluttering up my inbox: Billy Bussey has a pretty out there Flash/Quicktime site with lots of 3D goodness. I can't decide whether I like it, but it is damn impressive. Georg Schlosser, an Austrian photographer, has a great portfolio site. The site itself is a little funky, but well worth it. [via Superfluous Man] Continuing with the photography theme, Michael Zeppetello has some absolutely gorgeous concept and art shots. The Commarts Interactive Annual is online. Some highlights include Eric Myer, Typorganism, and Fly Guy. I still need to go through the rest...... http://www.philoye.com/musings/000232.shtml Rachel Cline, a good friend of mine's book, What to Keep: A Novel, is now available for pre-order from Amazon. Get it! She's definitely one of my more famous friends, with a page on IMDb and now at Amazon....