IE7 Beta 1 Initial Impressions

Things I've noticed from the IE7 beta (these are all based on 10 minutes with the software, so there may be bugs in my report):

• iRider still works, though with a warning message at startup.
• When in (file) explorer, entering a URL into the address bar now opens the URL in your standard browser (iRider) rather than turning itself into an IE window, super rocking awesome.
• The CSS images issue on sproutliner still seems to exist (it likes to load each tick, cross and dot individually).
• In the classic theme, the IE7 window itself is ugly, and you can't seem to easily hide the tabs. You can't seem to change the location of the toolbars, so rather than having the file/edit/view bar then the URL bar, you have URL bar, tabs, file/edit/view menu, seems a bit daft as you have to move your mouse further to get to the URL bar from the content - the file/edit/view bar should at least be positionable at the top of the window just like every other windows app.
• The 'close tab' button is not attached to the actual tab and is all the way over to the left.

Thanks to things more easily opening in iRider now, this probably won't be all THAT annoying, and hopefully these things are addressed for final.

Navigable Breadcrumbs

Nice, Windows Vista includes navigable breadcrumbs, this is the sort of kick in the pants I need to update Crumbler (the public version on bodytag lags miles behind the commercial version).

Cut to Ribbons

It's been a while since I produced any new interactive stuff, so here's something I made recently that uses multiple webcams to track the position of a hand-held marker or person. The tracking data is then used to produce some interactive 3D imagery for viewing through dorky 3D glasses.

Screenshot of Motion

Here's some text from the "I can't be bothered writing this" description:

"Projector-based interactive installation artwork. Inspiration came from the ribbons used in rhythmic gymnastics and chinese ribbon dances.

By using multiple cameras to track the 3D motion of a distinct object (such as a torch) held by a visitor we can create and project a virtual ribbon, with the dancer and ribbon dancing on opposite sides of the virtual/real border."

There are images and videos on the proper Cut to Ribbons page. All a bit of fun, really.

Librie Font Size

I've been lusting after a Sony Librie eBook reader after hearing so many good things about its fabulous e-ink display, but one thing the reviews never touched on was how much text you could fit onto a page before it became unreadable. I had heard reports from some people who'd converted PDFs to images and said that the text was often too small and had to be converted upwards, but there was nothing on the font sizes of text presented from the default Librie LRF file format. (I'd much prefer to store my books as LRF plaintext than as images).

HUGE TEXT OF DOOOM

So I downloaded the Librie software which includes a nice simulation of the Librie and my fears were confirmed - despite the Librie display being quite small, the smallest font size is still so huge that space and time bends towards it. Unfortunately, short of turning all the pages into images of smaller text, there's no way of making the font any smaller. To make things mildly worse, the huge page margin (which is in addition to the artifical 'plastic' margin of the Librie's case) is not adjustable.

This is an issue for me given the slightly odd fashion in which I read which requires a lot of flipping back and forth up and down through content, and is exacerbated by the Librie apparently taking 1 second to update the display when turning pages, so if you read at a decent speed (say, 600wpm) then you will have to deal with 1 second pauses every 20 seconds or so.

I'd love to hear from anyone with hands-on experience with the unit who could correct me.

Peep (The Network Auralizer)

Some time ago I thought it would be a smashing idea if network admins could 'listen' to their network, with traffic load, type, origin and destination being rendered in realtime as different types/locations/intensities of background noise (eg birds, traffic). When everything was chugging along normally, it would fade into the background of the admin's perception, but when things suddenly change, it would draw attention to itself.

Well, Peep does exactly that, and sounds just as I imagined it would. Super awesome.

The Sublime Project at Phatspace

Ok, a bit more on the arty business I was talking about earlier - from Thursday evening 'Are We There Yet (The Sublime Project)' is on at Phatspace in Sydney (Oxford ST, Darlinghurst). In addition to some super work from some smashing AU/NZ artists, you'll also be able to see some of my interactive installation stuff. I believe it will run through to the end of July.

Also, sorry about all the downtime - turns out another machine at the hosting center kept nabbing our IP address. Naughty.

Laiden Down

I leave for Sydney shortly on an art exhibition-related trip (more on that later). In packing my bags, I find I will be carrying:

1. Projector
2. Slimline Desktop PC (still hooge)
3. Keyboard
4. Mouse
5. 2 Quickcams
6. Laptop
7. Mobile
8. PocketPC
9. PSP
10. MiniDV Camera
11. Digital Still Camera
12. + All the cables and adapters for the above

.. ahh, the freedom of technology. At least give me back my pack mule.

Asian TV Spots

One of the many fond memories I have of visiting family in Thailand is watching bizarre asian TV commercials, which are sort of this super special blend of 50s-era cheese, modern production techniques and that quirky asian humour that totally rocks my boat. Unfortunately, Thailand isn't really a rich country, so the commercials tended to be a bit crapper than they need to be.

Thank goodness we still have Japan, then. While great, these commercials aren't the highly amusing celebrity antics you might see on Japander, nor are they all glitzy like the recent Chinese World of Warcraft / Coke commercial, but they do give me a small amount of false hope that perhaps my crazier traits are hereditary.