Well, following Michael's post last month about our collective Vista experiences, I write this as the proud installer of Vista SP1 RC, a.k.a "a-bit-better-than-beta". And I have to say I'm noticing a world of improvement.
Unzipping my test 1mb / 1000 image file showed a significant improvement on Vista's previously flakey zip function. An action that previously took an astonishing 20 minutes (compared to WinRar's 15 seconds) now took a mere 18 minutes!
Network copying of files was noticeably improved, now only giving me chance to get as far as the milk-adding stage of my cuppa.
Stability of applications also seems more solid, with Dreamweaver only giving me an out of memory error if I have Illustrator open and Outlook, which is forgiveable given that my Core Duo only has 2GB of RAM to play with. And the icons on Photoshop's tool palette now only inexplicably vanish at most 30% of the time, which has significantly improved my workflow.
There's plenty of other improvements too, and more I'm sure will emerge over time. But suffice to say I'm glad I held out for SP1, and didn't lose heart entirely.
... now... where did I put that standalone XP disk?
Vista humbug aside, the festive season is close upon us. So I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all our clients, suppliers, friends and colleagues a Merry Christmas from us all at Wordsun Web Works.
18 December 2007
09 November 2007
I hate Vista
OK so hate is a strong word and should really be reserved for special occasions but I think in this case it actually is appropriate. I switched to Vista at the beginning of the year attracted by promises of improved speed, stability and security. In all three of these areas it has fundamentally failed:
Speed - Vista is slow to start up, slow to shutdown, slow to open applications, slow to copy files, and slow to unzip files.
Stability - Vista is buggy, unstable and crashes frequently. It is not uncommon for me to have to reboot 2 or 3 times per day due to crashes. When programs freeze, task manager often refuses to open so you can't even force quit a troublesome app.
Security - Bitlocker sounds great but you need a computer with a TPM chip, a copy of Vista Ultimate (very expensive) and a degree in geekery to get it working. Oh and if your OS came preinstalled, you have to wipe everything off your hard drive and reinstall to get it working, as I discovered after loading all my apps and docs onto the system.
I'd love to say "apart from that it's great" but that would be a lie. My network card software fails to load every other boot, the WiFi card turns itself off every few hours, the video driver always forgets my multiple screen configuration and swaps the monitors round after a reboot, and the fingerprint scanner fails to be recognised approximately 1 in 3 boots.
Since I have been using Vista, my productivity has nose dived, but at least I can flip through my error messages in translucent windows with a 3d animation effect.
If you're wondering whether to stay with XP or try out Vista, my advice is to buy a Mac. You can't stay in the past with XP forever and I've seen an awful vision of the future with Vista. Even if you hate Macs you'll probably hate them less than you'll hate Vista.
Speed - Vista is slow to start up, slow to shutdown, slow to open applications, slow to copy files, and slow to unzip files.
Stability - Vista is buggy, unstable and crashes frequently. It is not uncommon for me to have to reboot 2 or 3 times per day due to crashes. When programs freeze, task manager often refuses to open so you can't even force quit a troublesome app.
Security - Bitlocker sounds great but you need a computer with a TPM chip, a copy of Vista Ultimate (very expensive) and a degree in geekery to get it working. Oh and if your OS came preinstalled, you have to wipe everything off your hard drive and reinstall to get it working, as I discovered after loading all my apps and docs onto the system.
I'd love to say "apart from that it's great" but that would be a lie. My network card software fails to load every other boot, the WiFi card turns itself off every few hours, the video driver always forgets my multiple screen configuration and swaps the monitors round after a reboot, and the fingerprint scanner fails to be recognised approximately 1 in 3 boots.
Since I have been using Vista, my productivity has nose dived, but at least I can flip through my error messages in translucent windows with a 3d animation effect.
If you're wondering whether to stay with XP or try out Vista, my advice is to buy a Mac. You can't stay in the past with XP forever and I've seen an awful vision of the future with Vista. Even if you hate Macs you'll probably hate them less than you'll hate Vista.
26 September 2007
Adobe Air fails to impress
Following the announcement of the new Adobe Air interface to Google Analytics yesterday, I decided to have a good look at Air for the first time and see what it could really do. My expectations were fairly high based on what I'd heard from Adobe but I was bitterly disappointed with the applications that are currently available.
Air applications are like widgets that are easily authored (apparently) using existing technologies such as HTML, Flash and Javascript. Using Adobe's development tools, you can build your own Air applications to do whatever you want (within reason).
Given the great potential of the Air framework, it is disappointing to see Adobe's sample applications and showcase including feeble applications such as an RSS feed of colours from their Kuler application, an application that lets you draw with a virtual marker pen on your screen and a web developer tool that displays the source and DOM of a web page with significantly fewer features than the excellent web developer extension for Firefox.
I honestly couldn't find a single Air application, whether developed by Adobe or by 3rd parties, that I found in any way useful. There didn't seem to be anything available that couldn't already be done a better way. For example, why would you want to run a seperate Google Anayltics Air application which provides you with the exact same features as the browser-based version. Or why would you fire up the Kuler RSS colour feed when you could just view it in your RSS reader?
Maybe as the framework matures and more developers come up with new ways of using the technology, something genuinely useful will emerge, or maybe I'm just missing the point, but for the moment:
Adobe Air = I don't get it.
Air applications are like widgets that are easily authored (apparently) using existing technologies such as HTML, Flash and Javascript. Using Adobe's development tools, you can build your own Air applications to do whatever you want (within reason).
Given the great potential of the Air framework, it is disappointing to see Adobe's sample applications and showcase including feeble applications such as an RSS feed of colours from their Kuler application, an application that lets you draw with a virtual marker pen on your screen and a web developer tool that displays the source and DOM of a web page with significantly fewer features than the excellent web developer extension for Firefox.
I honestly couldn't find a single Air application, whether developed by Adobe or by 3rd parties, that I found in any way useful. There didn't seem to be anything available that couldn't already be done a better way. For example, why would you want to run a seperate Google Anayltics Air application which provides you with the exact same features as the browser-based version. Or why would you fire up the Kuler RSS colour feed when you could just view it in your RSS reader?
Maybe as the framework matures and more developers come up with new ways of using the technology, something genuinely useful will emerge, or maybe I'm just missing the point, but for the moment:
Adobe Air = I don't get it.
19 September 2007
Why mega-pixels don't always mean mega-pictures...
Over the past couple of years we've seen an increasing number of clients nipping out with the office digital camera when asked to provide a photo of a product or team member for their website or print campaign. All well and good - the photographic bang you get for your buck nowadays is pretty darned impressive, and snapping images yourself is obviously much more convenient and cost-effective than employing the services of a professional photographer.
Unfortunately the end result isn't always the pin-sharp masterpiece it could be, even when armed with the latest 10 Megapixel technological triumph. Obviously the magic of Photoshop means we can iron out some of the imperfections in many of the images we're provided with, but following a few basic tips can significantly improve the initial image quality, giving a better end result and (in the case of PR images) increasing the likelihood of publication.
Put simply, a sharp, high quality image is far more likely to be prominently used in a publication than a grainy snapshot!
Keep the noise down...
Digital noise is one of the most common problems. This is the grainy, multicoloured speckles within blocks of colour, particularly in darker or low-light images. Some of this can be digitally removed, but using a "median" technique, which reduces image quality. The best way to limit the amount of noise in an image is to experiment with the camera's ISO settings. Instead of the "auto" setting, try a slower ISO speed of 100-200. This effectively increases the amount of time the camera has to capture image data. The downside to this is that the camera needs to be held steady to avoid blurred images, which leads us to ...
... invest in a tripod...
Well, I say invest, but you can pick up a decent tripod from the likes of Amazon for £20, so it's hardly going to dent the finances. And the return on image quality will be immeasurable! A tripod means you can safely fiddle with all kinds of camera settings without having to worry about keeping a steady hand. Combine that with the increased number of cameras that now come provided with remote controls and you need never worry about camera shake again! This also enables you to work in lower or indoor light environments without resorting to...
...flash! ...
Unless you have a professional flash gun with a "fill" mode or a controlled secondary light source, disable the auto-flash mode! All this will achieve is washed-out colours, red-eye and ugly shadows, particularly if your subject is close to its background. While we can restore some of these, a harsh flash reduces the amount of colour information in the image, and we can't put back what isn't there! Better is to use the previously purchased tripod and a slower exposure. This will allow the camera to take in more natural light, and capture more image data. It's easier to make a good dark photo lighter, than a poor bright photo darker!
... keep it big...
It may seem like an obvious tip but if the camera is capable of taking 5MP shots, take a 5MP shot! Bigger is better in digital photographs, as the increased resolution makes it a lot easier to disguise imperfections when scaled down afterwards. Also if you have the option to take the image in an uncompressed format like RAW, then do so. Failing that, make sure any options that mention image quality or JPG settings are set to maximum. It will increase the file size, but this is preferable to heavily compressed images, which may be noise free and razor sharp but ruined by countless JPG artefacts. If email size restrictions cause a problem, use a large-file upload service such as http://www.yousendit.com.
Unfortunately the end result isn't always the pin-sharp masterpiece it could be, even when armed with the latest 10 Megapixel technological triumph. Obviously the magic of Photoshop means we can iron out some of the imperfections in many of the images we're provided with, but following a few basic tips can significantly improve the initial image quality, giving a better end result and (in the case of PR images) increasing the likelihood of publication.
Put simply, a sharp, high quality image is far more likely to be prominently used in a publication than a grainy snapshot!
Keep the noise down...
Digital noise is one of the most common problems. This is the grainy, multicoloured speckles within blocks of colour, particularly in darker or low-light images. Some of this can be digitally removed, but using a "median" technique, which reduces image quality. The best way to limit the amount of noise in an image is to experiment with the camera's ISO settings. Instead of the "auto" setting, try a slower ISO speed of 100-200. This effectively increases the amount of time the camera has to capture image data. The downside to this is that the camera needs to be held steady to avoid blurred images, which leads us to ...
... invest in a tripod...
Well, I say invest, but you can pick up a decent tripod from the likes of Amazon for £20, so it's hardly going to dent the finances. And the return on image quality will be immeasurable! A tripod means you can safely fiddle with all kinds of camera settings without having to worry about keeping a steady hand. Combine that with the increased number of cameras that now come provided with remote controls and you need never worry about camera shake again! This also enables you to work in lower or indoor light environments without resorting to...
...flash! ...
Unless you have a professional flash gun with a "fill" mode or a controlled secondary light source, disable the auto-flash mode! All this will achieve is washed-out colours, red-eye and ugly shadows, particularly if your subject is close to its background. While we can restore some of these, a harsh flash reduces the amount of colour information in the image, and we can't put back what isn't there! Better is to use the previously purchased tripod and a slower exposure. This will allow the camera to take in more natural light, and capture more image data. It's easier to make a good dark photo lighter, than a poor bright photo darker!
... keep it big...
It may seem like an obvious tip but if the camera is capable of taking 5MP shots, take a 5MP shot! Bigger is better in digital photographs, as the increased resolution makes it a lot easier to disguise imperfections when scaled down afterwards. Also if you have the option to take the image in an uncompressed format like RAW, then do so. Failing that, make sure any options that mention image quality or JPG settings are set to maximum. It will increase the file size, but this is preferable to heavily compressed images, which may be noise free and razor sharp but ruined by countless JPG artefacts. If email size restrictions cause a problem, use a large-file upload service such as http://www.yousendit.com.
12 September 2007
Free web graphics
Birmingham based web developer, Mark James, has kindly put together a free set of cool web icons that are very well designed and look a little bit Web 2.0:
There's around 1,000 icons in this set altogether so they cover pretty much everything you could ever want on your website or blog.
There's around 1,000 icons in this set altogether so they cover pretty much everything you could ever want on your website or blog.
04 September 2007
Which is the most popular web browser
Yesterday I went through a ton of data from one of my personal websites DoYouRemember.co.uk , a site mainly about 80s toys, 80s movies and 80s music. I was reading the traffic analysis reports using the fabulous free Google Analytics software (if you're not using this yet, you should be) and was interested to see the latest figures on browser market share. The market has shifted substantially since this time last year.
The figures for August 2007 are as follows (with August 2006 figures in brackets):
74% (82%) - Internet Explorer
20% (11%) - Firefox
4% (3%) - Safari
2% (4%)- Other
And if we break down the Internet Explorer figures a bit further:
55% (96%)- Version 6.0
44% (2%) - Version 7.0
1% (2%) - Older
It's clear from this data that Firefox is becoming a more important player and seriously threatening Microsoft's dominance of the browser market (yay for Firefox!). But what does this data mean for web developers?
Well, the obvious conclusion is that we need to continue developing cross-browser compatible websites and make sure we are still testing on the big three as a minimum - IE6, IE7 and Firefox. Between them they account for 98% of all Internet traffic and much of the remaining 2% will render webpages the same anyway. It's still useful to have a peek in Safari or Opera, of course, since they have their own quirks.
My prediction for August 2008:
66% - Internet Explorer
27% - Firefox
5% - Safari
2% - Other
21% - Version 6.0
79% - Version 7.0
1% - Older (or newer - who knows, maybe they'll get a version 8 out next year!)
The figures for August 2007 are as follows (with August 2006 figures in brackets):
74% (82%) - Internet Explorer
20% (11%) - Firefox
4% (3%) - Safari
2% (4%)- Other
And if we break down the Internet Explorer figures a bit further:
55% (96%)- Version 6.0
44% (2%) - Version 7.0
1% (2%) - Older
It's clear from this data that Firefox is becoming a more important player and seriously threatening Microsoft's dominance of the browser market (yay for Firefox!). But what does this data mean for web developers?
Well, the obvious conclusion is that we need to continue developing cross-browser compatible websites and make sure we are still testing on the big three as a minimum - IE6, IE7 and Firefox. Between them they account for 98% of all Internet traffic and much of the remaining 2% will render webpages the same anyway. It's still useful to have a peek in Safari or Opera, of course, since they have their own quirks.
My prediction for August 2008:
66% - Internet Explorer
27% - Firefox
5% - Safari
2% - Other
21% - Version 6.0
79% - Version 7.0
1% - Older (or newer - who knows, maybe they'll get a version 8 out next year!)
31 August 2007
Powerpoint, Flash, and why you shouldn't...
I understand the point of PowerPoint - I really do. Even when criticised for a "pipeline" approach to presenting information. Even when the three-way simultaneous bombardment of visual, textual and aural information is causing mental shutdown in the audience. Even when presentations become so bloated that they become a hindrance to global security... even when drowning in the deepest depths of clip-art hell, I understand its appeal and why it remains so entrenched in corporate life.
What I don't understand, however, is why Microsoft seems content for it to remain such a clunky, buggy, temperamental albatross of an application. Over the past couple of revisions we've seen the introduction of pseudo-3D text styles, nice fades rather than the old-school pixel dissolve, and a larger range of fly-ins than Easyjet. All very lovely (if still lagging somewhat behind Apple's Keynote), but still not even coming close to addressing the real problems.
Take one of our recent experiences as an example. Our client wanted their PowerPoint presentation to offer a little more in the way of visual punch. Aware of the common traps when designing engaging slides, they wondered if we could add some fancy eye-candy using Flash. Surely no problem, right? The software has been around for over a decade now in various forms, and is as widespread as any other document format. Heck, there's even an option to insert a "Flash Document" under the "Insert Object" menu. Except... um... that doesn't work, either crashing the application, displaying an error or settling simply for displaying a Flash icon.
No, instead we need the "Developer" menu (helpfully hidden by default), so we can insert a "Shockwave Flash Object" control. Cue a baffling series of parameters, embedding options, not to mention delving into the code view's Visual Basic editor to hack a script that makes sure the Flash movie rewinds correctly when returning to a slide. Which in turn means your PowerPoint is now loaded with enough macros to terrify even the most liberal of corporate IT lockdowns. When it works, of course... which it might not :-/
Oh, and don't expect any of this to work on any Macs running the slides. Nope, this is ActiveX territory only.
Surely this isn't the future of corporate presentations - locked into slide after slide of the same stale templates simply because PowerPoint is so backwards it can't cope with the inclusion of anything more complex than a sound file?
What I don't understand, however, is why Microsoft seems content for it to remain such a clunky, buggy, temperamental albatross of an application. Over the past couple of revisions we've seen the introduction of pseudo-3D text styles, nice fades rather than the old-school pixel dissolve, and a larger range of fly-ins than Easyjet. All very lovely (if still lagging somewhat behind Apple's Keynote), but still not even coming close to addressing the real problems.
Take one of our recent experiences as an example. Our client wanted their PowerPoint presentation to offer a little more in the way of visual punch. Aware of the common traps when designing engaging slides, they wondered if we could add some fancy eye-candy using Flash. Surely no problem, right? The software has been around for over a decade now in various forms, and is as widespread as any other document format. Heck, there's even an option to insert a "Flash Document" under the "Insert Object" menu. Except... um... that doesn't work, either crashing the application, displaying an error or settling simply for displaying a Flash icon.
No, instead we need the "Developer" menu (helpfully hidden by default), so we can insert a "Shockwave Flash Object" control. Cue a baffling series of parameters, embedding options, not to mention delving into the code view's Visual Basic editor to hack a script that makes sure the Flash movie rewinds correctly when returning to a slide. Which in turn means your PowerPoint is now loaded with enough macros to terrify even the most liberal of corporate IT lockdowns. When it works, of course... which it might not :-/
Oh, and don't expect any of this to work on any Macs running the slides. Nope, this is ActiveX territory only.
Surely this isn't the future of corporate presentations - locked into slide after slide of the same stale templates simply because PowerPoint is so backwards it can't cope with the inclusion of anything more complex than a sound file?
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