September 29, 2006
Snagit (from techsmith) generally rules supreme for screen grabbing and it’s fairly defacto at Amnesia. I use it dozens of times each day and could not survive without it. However this neat Firefox extension grabs an entire website page (including long scrolling pages or just the visable viewport) much faster than SnagIt does. Oh yes - it’s free too so if you don’t already own SnagIt, this is way better than the print screen button.
Get it here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1146/
by Andy Mutton.
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Posted by eunmac
September 29, 2006
http://www.cue.cc/CueS06.html
Simple and effective use of a sideways scroller.
Sideways scrollers always cause debate and are generally loathed but this site manages to pull it off. I would have liked to have seen a ‘quicknav’ on this to polish the functionality in getting to something you’ve seen at the far end - scrolling does take too long to get all the way through. A super fast scroll could have worked too.
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Posted by eunmac
September 29, 2006
This site is a couple of years old now (not sure who made it), but it has to be one of the few sites ever that you can put in the laugh-out-loud category. It’s about a guy so obsessed with a video game about a monkey in a ball that he decides to live his own life …(wait for it) - in a ball.
http://www.mybigball.com/home.html
- I hope this site doesn’t dissapear now the product is probably off the shelves…
(I hate it when great sites vanish…)
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Posted by eunmac
September 27, 2006
Urr. Yes it is.
…and I have a predictive formula that fits nicely:
Commerical product + Guiness Book of Records Claim = One way trip to the ministry of bad design.
Adam Frucci’s review:
http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2006/09/25/worlds_smallest.html
It’s tempting to start a debate on function versus form here but looking at this phone is hurting my eyes and I’m already worried about someone accidently losing one in their ear.
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Posted by eunmac
September 27, 2006
Were you DESTINED to be a great designer from birth?
Good question - and here’s one theory on the whole right/left brain thing and a way of testing your brain. I recently remembered a great episode of Catalyst on the abc (Australia) which reported on the theory of brain switching, claiming that our brains are pre-programmed. Scientists, monks, artists all have distinctive rates at which the brain can swap activity from right to left brain and vice versa. We can all do this, but the results may be more pronounced between highly “CREATIVE” and highly “LOGICAL” brains. One of the claims is that the ’switch rate’ may be predetermined from birth and affect our careers…
I thought I’d reproduce the test here (which is an cool illusion - and I remember being quite surprised how the dots REALLY dissapeared).
AFTER YOU FINISH THE TEST BELOW…
POST YOUR CREATIVE POSITION AND RESULTS PLEASE in the comments field!!!
SAMPLE: This is a pretty cool illusion when full screen
WHAT TO DO: (Read this before you start)
* Get a pen and paper.
* Time the test for 30 seconds.
* Concentrate on the top left yellow dot. As you stare at this dot, the other dots will begin to disappear. Each time all three dots re-appear, tick the paper.
* Stop after 30 seconds.
Take The Test! CLICK HERE
Scores
* If you scored between 4 and 6, your brain switch rate is average.
* If you scored more than 6, your brains switch rate is fast, like a dancer.
* If you scored less than 4, your brain switch rate is slow, like a mathematicians.
The orginal ABC story on brain switching can be found here.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1063853.htm
The original test can be found here: (I borrowed their gif and resized it for effect - hope they don’t mind!)
http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/bonneh.html
Remember to post your results! Thanks 
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Posted by eunmac
September 27, 2006
This site is actually trying to sell a book, but this page has a few interesting examples of brain exercises - ‘keep your brain stronger for longer’. It is aimed at older people, although has been proven to be beneficial for everyone. The exercies simply involve you doing everyday things totally different, which results in you using parts of your brain which are not regularly exercised.
http://www.neurobics.com/exercise.html
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Posted by Dean
September 15, 2006
If you haven’t heard, Microsoft has officially launched it’s competitor to the iPod. “ZUNE”
So what’s the big deal? Is it worth getting excited about? OK - to start here’s a video posted on youtube showing some of the interface and features.
- Song and pic sharing (wireless) between Zune players
- Widescreen format for video
- 30GB storage (this seems small now next to Apples announcement of an 80GB iPOD)
- A pretty nice interface
Bottom line: Looks like it will be a nice solid product. An iPOD killer? Doubtful given the lead Apple has but it’s a good solid entry for MS into the space. LIVE ANYWHERE integration may prove a factor in the future but it’s not part of this release so far.
NEW IPOD “IN AIR” INTERFACE Patent:
What we think is going to be interesting is whether the Patent filed by Apple this year is an indication of the real next generation of portable media. The patent decribes an interface that is controlled without physically touching the screen. Let’s put this into perspective - if the entire face of an iPOD was used for watching video and I didn’t want my grubby fingerprints all over the screen this is might be a breakthrough. There are a number of issues here regarding control accuracy that come to mind, but it’s nice to even think that Apple are looking at this as a possible future direction for the iPOD.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1902
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Posted by eunmac
September 12, 2006
Japanese scientists have unvieled U-HDTV in Europe. U-HDTV has a screen resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels. WOW. That’s 32 megapixels by my calculations. (Did I get that right?)
Considering most Plasma TVs only just make 1368×768 you can understand why the article states it will be 25 years before any of us will have this kind of resolution in ourhomes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5335870.stm
U-HDTV will need really BIG SCREENS.
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Posted by eunmac
September 12, 2006
http://www.thisiswaiting.com/
With the Sony announcement of the delay of PS3 for Europe (and Australia) for march 2003, a number of sites have appeared. The official tagline for the PS3 marketing in Europe is “THIS IS LIVING” which has proved nice ammo for the guys who’ve put this site together.
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Posted by eunmac
OK - which lady had photoshop lyposuction?
eunmac
Dean
ryan b
iclazie
buckles
mel
stephanlange
tcee
Deano
Sandor
Tom
saund
andypearce