Jan

28

The colour of the city…

Filed Under Doing | 3 Comments

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The colour of the city... (image: )Every city has its own colour scheme, influenced by the local flora, fauna, terrain and dominant architecture.

The Walrus delves into city colour with this interesting collection of palettes derived from provincial capitals and the federal capital.

For each city, I had to centre on what makes it unique, such as prominent landmarks or distinctive features of its built . As a result, regional differences emerge: the North tends to be very bright, the Maritimes aquatic, Ottawa pale.

Kate Trgovac has a great perspective on Todd Falkowsky’s print article, but I’m just impressed that someone has taken the time to colour the cities!

 

Link (Thanks Kate!)

Jan

16

Can’t get Guitar Hero III for the Wii? Frets on Fire will ease your pain.

Filed Under Doing | 8 Comments


Cant get Guitar Hero III for the Wii? Frets on Fire will ease your pain. (image: 200px-Fretsonfire4)

My wrists are cramping. The was not designed to be used like this, but I’m having a blast! Damn you Frets on Fire!

I’ve been looking forward to getting Guitar Hero III for the Wii since before Christmas. But, as anyone not living under a rock will know, GH3 has been sold out everywhere since its release.

Perhaps, Activision (the publisher) is holding up shipments until they get through fixing the mono output bug.

Until that time, I’ll have to make do with Frets on Fire, an Open Source and freely downloadable Guitar Hero clone for , and Mac.

The I tried it last night, and must admit, it’s a blast! A fairly game, you hold your similar to a guitar, with the fingers of your left hand curling around the (from the back to the front) to hit your ‘frets’ (F1 - F5 keys). The Enter key is your ‘pick’.

The rest is all in the timing.

There’s a pretty entertaining tutorial, and three songs included, as is a song editor. packs are also available , from the usual bittorrent sources. And you can also import tracks from any of your Guitar Hero DVDs. Very .

Frets on Fire will also let you use your USB Guitar, should you already have one. Alas, I don’t, so I’ll have to get used to holding that damn …

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Jan

11

Online Photo Albums made easy — Video

Filed Under Photography, Social Media | 3 Comments


Once again the wizards at Common Craft make the complex seem easy. Sharing in Plain English is simply that. Well done, and Enjoy! And as you can tell by the little widget in the right hand column, I’m a flicker user :)

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Jan

5

Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2)

Filed Under Doing, In the life | 7 Comments


Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: 300px-G15) After a lengthily exchange with Logitech customer support (started October 22, 2007), I’ve just received my replacement Logitech G15 keyboard.

The key problem (pardon the pun) was that the black paint on a few of the keys was wearing off, allowing the backlighting to shine through obscuring any key lettering. This was around a year old..maybe less.

Now, since I’d started the process, Logitech updated and revised the G15 with:

  • Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: 300px-Logitech_G15_v2)Reportedly improved paint
  • Orange backlit (the first one was blue)
  • Reduced the number of programmable Gkeys from 18 to 6(!)
  • Reduced the size of the LCD display by appx. 40% though keeping the number of pixels HxW
  • Removed the ability of the LDC display to swivel
  • Removed the volume control wheel

Frankly, I was hoping for them to send me another v1 G15. I was comfortable with the footprint it had (huge), I liked the availability of all those programmable keys, and I liked the size of the LCD display.

But now I’ve got a v2, and here are my initial impressions:

  • Key depress feel is soft…maybe mushy?
  • sits differently on my …I have to hunt initially to place my fingers on the home row properly
  • footprint is smaller. I like this. I now have more for my mouse and Wacom Bamboo tablet.
  • LCD Display is very slightly out of alignment in it’s housing. Not too noticeable, but when I do it’s a minor annoyance.
  • The drivers and were easy to install and setup
  • Logitech maintained compatibility with LCDStudio, so my custom displays run properly
  • Not sure I like the smaller LCD display…we’ll see how it goes.
  • I *think* I’ll like the orange backlight. It seems to glare less.
  • The volume buttons work ‘ok’, but the wheel seemed nicer — like the wheel on an . Upside is I can still use the wheel/spot on the Wacom Bamboo :)
  • Marketing: the Box and some literature do NOT mention that the has 2 USB ports. I was worried because the v1 G15 does have these, and I didn’t want to lose the ability to plug in thumb drives..etc.
  • Am I missing the extra 12 macro keys? I’m not sure yet. The layout is different, but since I also have a Nostromo n52 , I’m sure I can map any missing functionality over to it.
Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: ) Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: )
Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: ) Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: )

Conclusion: For now I’d say I’m satisfied. The process took a while, I’m not convinced the paint on this will last better than the last. The reduced LCD display size could be an issue…but I’ll reserve judgement on it for now…and I think I like the orange backlight.

Jan

2

Alberta Winter on the Desktop

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Alberta Winter on the Desktop (image: )Happy New Year. I’ve been having more with Photoshop and with my new Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet, and decided to share the fruits of my labour.

Here’s a new 1280 x 865 wintery-themed image, taken one frosty morning out on the trail near the Waskahegan trail at the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Recreation Area, just east of .

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