TyneMouth in short.jpg

TyneMouth in short-2.jpg

IMG_2250.jpg

IMG_2251.jpg

IMG_2253.jpg

IMG_2255.jpg

Made in China

Wouldnt you know? HSBC dont lie, their advert was true... 8 is lucky - turns out proof needed for the chinese finding 8 to be so came today (08.08.08) when the launch of the Olympics in Beijing turned out better than I ever imagined. Opening ceremonies have been given a new yard stick to measure up to and I truly believe London, due to host the games in 2012, are crapping themselves.

However you look at that though, it's a good thing. I hope the people running London 2012 will now pull their act together, get their fingers out and do something decent. Apart from the fact i'm not sure the British Government can afford to sustain all those flames at the rate that gas prices are rising. I envision the olympic torch being a police mag light and the cauldron being solar panels and a wind turbine powering an energy saving bulb.

One more thing though... why did so many countries dress their athletes as air stewards?

08.08.08

It's 08.08.08 and the official release of idsketching.com!

Why America is F***ed

I love this guys passion. He basically explains why America is doomed, graphically at least. Here's the link.

[Vista] Windows Switcher is an Exposé Clone

Windows Switcher is a program meant to mimic OSX's Exposé, Great if your looking for that Mac feel, and argurably better than The Vista Aero 3D Switcher (which has the same sort of functionality, but not as quick to view every program open...it just looks pretty) and tab.

Windows Switcher is available for Vista only, and is available here...for Free!

Lego Desktop PC

Blogger Luke Anderson has detailed on his blog about how he built this sweet computer out of Lego Bricks.

Man this makes me wanna crack out my Lego and make a case mod myself!

I See Dead Pixels

Detect Dead Pixels On your screen using this site

Pres F11 to get full screen for a full examination!

Multiple Home Pages In Firefox

If like me you are impatient and like to open all of your usual sites after starting up Firefox, you can set your homepage to open several tabs of different web sites at once automatically.

From Firefox's Tools menu, Options, General, enter the addresses of sites separated by a pipe |, as shown above. Or, you can open up all the sites in tabs and hit the "Use Current Pages" button.

[Windows] Create to-do's with Doomi

As the Master of All List Makers i found this application very handy.

Doomi was designed from the ground up to stay out of your way and out of your browser. It has all the features you use, and none of the ones you don’t. Create, edit, set reminders, and keep archives of your old tasks.

Grab It Here

Your beloved iPhone is spying on you...

In the last couple of hours it's become clear that your iPhone is talking to Apple behind your back. No, it's not recording how many hours you spend on lolcats, but rather it calls home ET style to see what apps it should turn off. This takes the control of Apple out of iTunes with DRM and into your pocket.  Macrumors has written:

Jonathan Zdziarski, author of iPhone Forensics, reveals (via iPhone Atlas) the remote url that Apple is using to keep a list of the offending applications:

“This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.

“I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.”

In my understanding applications for this include the possiblity of disabling apps that somehow slipped through Apples approval stage.  For example the Netshare Utility that allowed you to share your 3g connection over wifi was promptly pulled, but if someone has already downloaded and installed it- this would allow for a slight bit of backtracking on apples part with remote disabling.

Increase Photoshops RAM Usage to speed up rendering

So you're approaching deadline for that University project and Photoshop is taking ages to render that very final effect you have applied.

Speed up your productivity in Photoshop CS3 by increasing the amount of RAM that Photoshop is allowed to use.

In Windows:  To get to the performance menu simply navigate Edit-->Preferences-->General. Then click the performance tab on the left hand side and you can increase the RAM that Photoshop can use.

On OS X: Whilst in Photoshop, in the menu bar click Photoshop -> Preferences -> Performance -> Either type in or slide up to select your allocated RAM.

Happy Tweaking

New Facebook Design

It feels like just a few minutes ago that facebook was just a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye.  Maybe I'm a bit slow or maybe I'm just not addicted to facebook but I noticed a bar at the top telling me theres a new version- being a fan of all things new, I hit that.  On first sight, very appealing, and very usable.  Ive only been on it for a few minutes but I've already got the feel for it.  Design wise, still the same pale blue and white- nothing bold or offensive here! Let's just be thankful, it could have been the next gen mySpace.

Photography inspiration

If your needing some inspiration to take photos, have a look at this.It nearly makes me want to get off my ass and pick up my camera.What tops this off is the simple and elegant website and touching story.  Get your kleenex, this is gonna be tough.

Not a fan of Digital or Analog Clocks? Fuzzyclock is for you

A fuzzy alternative to the standard OSX clock

FuzzyClock is a simple and nice alternative to the default clock in the OSX Menu Bar

The text of the clock is more "human-readable" than the standard numeric time; "12:14 PM" becomes "Quarter past twelve".

Windows version is also available


Download:-
Windows
Mac

Apple Stores using Windows Mobile

I always wondered what devices the sales people in Apple stores were using to add up your bill.  This guy finally answered that question- it's a Motorola MC75 EDA running Windows Mobile.  My question, why not an iPhone? Answer, the battery would last less than half your shift.

What the font?!

Upload picture- tells you the font.

 

Done.

I was waiting for this...

With click happy customers browsing the iPhone app store, it's no surprise people try to take advantage of it by charging obscene amounts for nothing at all.  An app called "I'm rich" and charging $999 was clearly just taking the piss.  It gets better... someone bought it by accident.

Nice one. Photo credit gizmodo.com

[iPhone] Pimp Your iPhone

When the 3G iPhone was confirmed in the token Apple White colour, I looked down on my 2G iPhone like it was a piece of dirt.

After finding colorware it looks like it will be getting a lick of paint, though not as exciting as the ones pictured above, i'm feeling just a white back.

Colorware don't just do iPhones...They do pretty much anything! so if your silver Macbook Pro is boring you, give it a lick of paint!

Aurora Concept Browser

Mozilla, the people behind Firefox et al have released 2 concept videos of a new browser christened Aurora.  The first is the desktop version and the second is a mobile version.  Personally I like it, it's a nice way to organise information and its got a very Aero feel to it.  I do have some reservations about it though; have you ever tried to find an image you've saved by looking through the thumbnails? I could very well see this being more of a treasure hunt than the smooth rainfall comparing GUI it's shown off to be.  Secondly, why have they chosen a farmer to be their end user of choice? It's not, well, exciting, they must really be wanting the concept to speak for itself.  

Web collaboration is extremely difficult at the moment and this seems to have nailed it, the ability to communicate with someone from right in the browser and to view and control the same pages has infinite uses.  

The mobile version is nice, being shown off on an iPhone-esque device punches home the potential of touch screen.  Imagine now a combination of this and Microsoft Surface but with gestures.  I truly believe this is a flexible and effective method not just of wading the web but of controlling all sorts of data.

If you like this, you may also be interested in the work of Digg Labs.

[Apple] Must have Apps.

These three pieces of completely free software make your mac that little bit sweeter.

Perian- A self confessed "Swiss Army Knife for Quicktime" that will play almost anything you throw at it.  It installs to your preference pain and theres no moving files to the library and no fuss.  It's also 100% free.

 

Growl- Elegant notification system which ties into iTunes, Mail, Adium (see below) and Safari, doesn't get in the way and keeps you ontop of things. Free.

Adium- Works great with Growl, a simple but feature full IM app that supports every service you might use. The OS X equivilent of Pidgin. Completely Free.

[Windows] CCleaner - The first C stands for Crap

XP and Vista compatible program CCleaner is one of the best junk file cleaning tools I've ever used...and it's free. Head over to their site, you'll be amazed with the results!

[Vista] myTV Application for Vista Media Centre

I've been using this for a while now, coupled with my 1000's of TV Episodes, myTV is a Vista Media Center Plug-In which provides a great way to archive all of your shows stored on networked drives or hard drives.

It shows information of the show scraped from thetvdb.com and displays it in a concentric manor.

The online community of myTV users are so helpful, so if there's any problems with the install it will be ironed out within minutes.

Trial Version is free...but you will buy!

Head over to the myTV site and check it out