Archive for Apple
May 31, 2007 at 9:49 am · Filed under Apple, Design Inspiration, Personal, Tech
Yesterday I got my 17" MacBook Pro laser engraved, and I'm extremely excited about the results:
Overall the process is actually fairly simple - the artwork gets loaded into CorelDraw (oh how we were missing Illustrator) and then you print the design just like any other document. The printer driver allows you to select the settings for the laser engraver such as power, resolution, and dithering modes. After a test run on paper to ensure everything was lined up properly, we etched directly onto the laptop.
The hardest part was picking out and customizing the artwork. It is permanent, and as such the task of choosing artwork made me feel like I was getting a tattoo. Because I earn my living as a Flash Developer and I spend much of my day working on my laptop, the design had to be something I was sure would stand the test of time. For that reason I decided to choose something that had a retro feel, but also a bit organic and edgy. I think that was accomplished with this design, and once the process was finished I felt I had chosen correctly.
A big thanks to Joe at Engrave here in Portland, Oregon for spending a few hours helping me get everything perfect. Joe posted a few photos we took (including the two above) to his Flickr account last night, and the design is already getting some great feedback.
Update: Here's a short video I shot with my small Canon Powershot last night of the laser in action:
Update 2: Looks like someone posted this to Digg! Also, I've gotten a few emails asking about the artwork. It is an illustration I found on iStockPhoto, which I then put a few hours into customizing. So yes, it is unique, but you can find a similar illustration on iStockPhoto.
May 24, 2007 at 1:21 pm · Filed under Adobe, Apple, CS3
The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a hilarious post about someone who changed every icon in their OSX doc to match the Adobe CS3 branded icons. A full photo can be found here, and the article (which has some guesses at which icons are for which programs) is located here.
For more background on the subject of Adobe's CS3 icons, be sure to check out my prior post.
May 8, 2007 at 8:18 am · Filed under Adobe, Apple, Flash, Mobile Development
According to Ryan Stewart and the Wall Street Journal, Flash will be pre-installed on the Apple iPhone.
I'm surprised that I didn't see links to this flying all over MXNA yesterday, as I would think that most Flash developers would be really excited to have the ability to publish to an estimated 2 million new handheld devices within the next year. This will significantly increase the installed handheld user base, and very quickly.
It looks like there are still some questions floating around about who exactly is developing the player/plug-in (Apple or Adobe), but this could be a great platform and might even convince me to pick one up and ditch my Treo 700w.
[Update: Gizmodo has a post suggesting that the Flash player will be there for sure, especially since the NYTimes.com page they use for all the TV advertisements shows the Flash video player as loading just fine. Looks like a good clue to me! (via i2fly)]
[Update 2: Mike Downey from Adobe has a good post on the subject, but as we all know now that the iPhone has actually been released: there is no Flash support. I'd bet the farm that there will be soon, however.]
March 13, 2007 at 8:17 pm · Filed under Actionscript 3, Adobe, Apple, Flash, Flex
Apple released an OS X update today (10.4.9) which among several bug fixes also includes Flash Player 9.0.28. This means that anyone on a Mac who installs the update -- which I am assuming will be most users since it automatically prompts you as soon as you reboot your machine -- will automatically have the latest version of the Flash Player installed.
IMO this is huge because it will have a significant push on the adoption rate numbers, and will continue the push of Flex as a significant development platform.
Hey Adobe, think Microsoft will go for something like this in one of their monthly updates? Wishful thinking anyways...
I first read this on John Dowdell's blog, who works for Adobe.
February 13, 2007 at 2:36 pm · Filed under Apple, Flash
Earlier this week I was reading Engadget when all the sudden I became extremely distracted by a banner ad from Apple. I wasn't exactly sure why it had caught my attention so I scrolled down to take a look. After all, I, like most seasoned web surfers am able to tune out all but the most annoying of banner ads.
So what was it that caught my attention? Apple's blatant misuse of their screen real estate. Click play to watch the screencast I took of the page:
I was immediately hit with a ton of questions: Does/will this give Flash a bad rep in banner advertising? Or even worse, Flash as a whole? Will this lead to even more abusive banner ads? Is this even really abuse of their real estate? Are there any standard rules about banner ads absorbing the content they are supporting?
A few minutes later I noticed that NYTimes.com runs the same ad, but without the spillover of animation -- did they restrict it and/or think it was abuse? Content is king on NYTimes.com so I am sure they wouldn't take lightly to a banner ad that, even for a few seconds, covers their articles.
I've worked in advertising, so I understand the need to compete against all the other "distractions" on a web page, but isn't this taking it a bit too far? I can also appreciate thinking outside the box, literally. But I also understand as a Flash Developer that it is abuses like this that give Flash a bad name with the general, non-technical public. To them Flash equals a distracting animation encroaching on the article they were trying to read, not a complex platform that can make their web experience more usable and enjoyable.
December 12, 2006 at 10:50 am · Filed under Apple, Tech
I recently upgraded to a new 17" MacBook Pro, and I can't imagine being any happier with my decision. I'm loving OS X, being able to run both Windows and OS X on the same machine, and how speedy the machine is - even in Flash and Photoshop (hint - get the 3GB of RAM option).
But, less than two weeks after I got the MacBook the spacebar started squeaking every time it was pressed. While the keyboard still worked just fine, it got extremely annoying and slightly painful to listen to while coding away. Sounded like a bird chirping or a cricket sitting under my desk. After a few days of putting up with it and searching Google to see if others have had the same issue, I decided to take the computer into the Apple Store and see what they could do. My experience couldn't have been better, and now I'm rocking a silent keyboard.
Hurray for Apple support. Just another reason why spending a little more on the MacBook Pro vs a PC laptop has been worth the extra cost.
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