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Fri 31 Dec
2004
Grid Computing… and Design
Remarks (13)
The layout grid I used for Subtraction Six.5 was improvised and inconsistent — I hobbled it together without much consideration or foresight, more interested in getting something finished than building something that would continue to make sense as I got more and more serious about the writing I post here. Over time, by virtue of repeated use, I became increasingly and lamentably invested in its tremendous shortcomings. When you make fairly liberal use of illustrations in your posts, you essentially wed yourself to the particulars of the CSS you’ve established, creating graphics of a certain width or ordering content in a particular method. It works in the short term, but it presents problems when you sit down to redesign.
NYT: Stephen Holden’s List of 2005’s Best Films
Thu 30 Dec
2004
Back in the Saddle
It feels a little weird to sit down and write a post after a little over a month on hiatus, but here I am, doing it. I’ve finally got version 7.0 of this Web site in a state where it’s practically ready to launched. If everything goes correctly, I will stick to the announcement I made a few days ago and release 7.0 to the public on Mon 03 Jan, just in time for everyone to get back to surfing their favorite blogs after New Year’s day.
Keynote 2 Rumored to Debut at Macworld Expo SF in January
I’m keeping my fingers crossed. If it turns out to be true, I’ll be very excited.
Simple RSS Customizations in Movable Type
Learn to Program: A Tutorial for the Future Programmer
RevSense: Self-Serve Ad Server
“Makes the process of selling, managing and rotating text, rich media and… plain old banners on your Web sites easy.” Looks promising and pretty inexpensive.
Get Your Hair Cut by a Hot Chick at This Salon
Little Known PDF Capabilities in iTunes
Wed 29 Dec
2004
The 2005 FontFont Calendar
Twelve typographic illustrations in PDF form, free for downloading. I’d buy a printed version!
How to Make an Encrypted Sparse Disk Image with Mac OS X
Great tip on creating password-protected, dynamically-sized disk images using the Terminal. Easier than it sounds.
“New York Changing: Revisiting Berenice Abbott’s New York” by Douglas Levere
Hugely engrossing photographic project and book documents how New York has changed in small and large ways.
Cocktail
“A general purpose utility for Mac OS X… maintenance tools and interface tweaks, all accessible via a comprehensive graphical interface.”
Tue 28 Dec
2004
You Don’t Need Word
Rick Schaut, a Microsoft developer, defends the “complicatedness” of Word.
Adium X
I’m finally warming up to this ridiculously well-designed, open source, multi-service chat client.
Growl
NYT: Girl Power Fuels Manga Boom in U.S.
100 Years of Illustration
How to Speed up Firefox for Broadband Users
Mon 27 Dec
2004
iDrops
“…Restores the health of your iPod, iBook, eMac and iMac G5 by bringing back the acrylic’s original factory finish and shine.”
Tutorial: Creating a Shoutbox with PHP
Pheugoo: Senceless Simplicity
Sun 26 Dec
2004
Very, Very Soon
Now Christmas is past, what's left to look forward to but a long and lonely winter? A new Subtraction.com, that's what! I'm getting very close to finishing this redesign. Right now I'm shooting to relaunch on Mon 03 Jan 2005. If I haven't lost you completely, please come back then!
Thu 23 Dec
2004
The Graphing Calculator Story
Ron Avitzur recounts how he snuck into Apple headquarters every day for six months to write software for them for free. An amazing tale.
DJ BC: “The Beastles”
Wed 22 Dec
2004
AAChoo
“…converts all your songs to AAC… with an easy drag-and-drop interface and full control over every encoding parameter.” Presumably, it can covert AACs to MP3s, too, but I haven’t tried that out.
Mon 20 Dec
2004
Retro Radar: Keeping You Retroactive
Jesus’ General
Honda’s ASIMO Robot Running at 3 Kilometers per Hour
Sun 19 Dec
2004
The Best Webcomics of 2004
Sat 04 Dec
2004
More Delays on the Turnpike to Relaunch
I gotta head to California today to see to my mom, who is going to have a moderately serious operation. The doctors say it will be a straightforward affair, so I should be back in New York late next week. But until then, little to no progress on the redesign. Aren't you glad you tuned in?
Thu 02 Dec
2004
Design into Production
Most of the look and feel is finished. Now I’m rebuilding the templates in Movable Type from scratch, both to correct amateur errors I made the first time around and to take advantage of some of the new features in MT 3.1x. Tonight, I made big progress when I got a rickety version of the home page publishing properly.