Interactive Llama

I generally don’t promote specific websites on this blog, but I enjoyed this humorous designer-centric site, MakeMyLogoBiggerCream too much not to post. Not only does it offer Make My Logo Cream, but if you act now you can get Whitespace Remover, Starburst Dust, Fluorescizer and The Emotionator for only three payments of $29.99! Act now!

I don’t own an Apple iPhone. I don’t have a need for a smart phone (maps, sending email on my phone, or watching YouTube videos–can you do and still call it a “smart” phone?). I also don’t want to pay for AT&T’s media plan either. And I only use my 20GB iPod in the car. Three of my co-workers own iPhones though, and one asked me to configure it to send email.

You would think, since the only wireless carrier that the Apple iPhone works with is AT&T (albeit the new hacks that have appeared), that they would make the default SMTP server AT&T’s SMTP’s server. However, they didn’t.

In AT&T’s Support KnowledgeBase KB7276 it says:

AT&T will provide support for sending E-mail using AT&T owned and operated outgoing server addresses:

• Former AT&T Wireless customers use “smtp.mymmode.com” (Standard POP/IMAP compatible via port 25 with no SSL.)
• AT&T customers use “cwmx.com” (Standard POP/IMAP compatible via port 25 with no SSL.)

The configuration and use of any other outgoing server address will not be supported due to several factors including, but not limited to, the inability for the outgoing server to authenticate users (whether by IP or username/password) that are not directly connected to that Internet Service Providers network. This is mainly done to prevent unsolicited users from sending SPAM via the ISPs servers.

Problem fixed!

About half of the following magzines, you might be able to get for free. I just subscribe to a bunch of them, so I can’t endorse any of them.
Videomaker (really basic, consumer level, but good beginner info)
Cinema Editor (from American Cinema Editors)
Videography
Studio
Video Systems
Dynamic Graphics
Photoshop User
DV (a favorite)
Post
Cinefex
Broadcast Engineering
Film & Video (now only available online)
TVB
Government Video
e-Media

Stephen M. James
smjdesign.com

I use a Mac for 8 hours everyday at work and they have definitely grown on me. Except for the simplicity of Finder (all 3 viewing modes are awful because they are not easily navigated by the keyboard) and lack of 10 million free programs that you can get off the net to run on Windows–I’d say I like it more (that’s a big step, btw).

So I’m in the market for a new PC and I actually thought about an Apple, but once I realized the options (or lack of), I didn’t look back and bought parts for a PC.

There are only 3 models of Mac: Mini ($500+), iMac ($1500+), MacPro($2500+). I am a media designer, and I will need 1GB+ to run Photoshop, Flash, and Illustrator at the same time. The only one that can do that (that also doesn’t require buying a monitor) is the MacPro which costs five times as much as I’m making my new PC for. I’m only buying a motherboard, 2GB of memory, a mATX case/power supply, and an AM2 processor for $500 from Newegg.com, since I already have hard disks and 2 DVD drives and an LCD monitor.

I know that building a PC from scratch is nothing compared to listening to the OS-X installation background music , but I’m sure I could get a Dell with enough processing power and upgrade the memory for $150. And anyway why would I need 4 Xeon processors (Mac Pro) if I’m not editing video? My work’s dual G5’s are fine. I think Apple just wants a pretty profit margin for their top of line system–one that I’m not willing to fill with my money.

Sorry, Steve, you need more options.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

I’m considering creating a new portfolio that will allow a Flash presentation of thumbnails of my work along with the actual HTML of the work within the same browser window (no popup, that is). The idea is to show the interactivity of my work without opening a new window. Most sites that I visit that showcase interactive Flash websites, open new windows to display each entry. Well, it’s a slight pain to close them. This idea would eliminate that.

But does it matter? Am I just wasting my time creating something I’ve never seen before just to be creating something I’ve never seen before? Is that worth it? Do creative directors really care if the idea is new (as far as I know), especially if they are graphic designers and not programmers of any sort.

My last portfolio took more than 150 hours, since it was all dynamic and is controlled by a text file of XML. Have I changed the text file since I started working full-time at my current job?

Nope.

It did display over 50 items that would have taken many tedious (and boring!) hours to create if I hadn’t dynamically created the current site at smjdesign.com, but viewers don’t know this. Only painters know how hard it is to paint. At the current site, my goal was to have minmal navigation on the screen, yet, be able to navigate almost instantly to the over 50 pieces. I achieved that, but some people said it was confusing, since I hid the navigation.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

My Creative Director sent me this post from UnderConsideration. It’s about animationed logos. Now with so many sites incorporating flash and video, it’s something that can’t be ignored.

And?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ Logo Action!

As the author opens, he says he had no cable for a year. I can relate. Whenever I am around a television at a friend’s house I have to watch the commercials. I analyze the editing the video and the effects, especially any graphical compositing.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

As the last semester for the next batch of job hopefuls gets into full swing, I wanted to offer my advice. (Much of this is aimed at the college junior though). We were introducing ourselves at church the other day (in a small group). Everyone mentions their job–even if it’s under their breath. I introduced myself as saying that I worked at an ad agency and do exactly what I did college–except that it’s better quality–and I get paid for it. As we went around the room, I was surprised at the number of people that this is not true for.

1. Decide what you actually want to do
2. Actually do it (intern, get hired, etc.) before you leave college
3. Preferably before your senior year
4. And preferably under someone who is good at it. It was raises your standards bar. All your previous work will begin to have an awful stinch–but hey isn’t that good? You will also see that a 50 hour project is small and that great work is often collaborative. You will also learn that collaboration saves time, too. Hopefully, you can throw a Fortune 500 company on your resume.
5. Drop names, drop a few critical names. You need to gain the trust of your future employee. You need to project that you can do the job.
6. Put your three best projects on the web, so that your future employer can view them. (Okay, put more than that if you’ve been in the business a while–but don’t put stuff in your portfolio just to make it big). They are looking for quality. Let me repeat. They are looking for quality. Can you do the job? As a recent college graduate, you won’t get the job no way/no how if they wanted experience or busines acumen in the first place.
7. Prove your versatility. Can you do graphic design? Video? Flash? Audio? Hey, don’t present it if it’s awful. It only takes one project to impress your future boss. Impress him (or her) in a multimedia presentation and storm the castle from multiple sides, Mr. Swiss Army Knife. They wouldn’t be hiring a recent college graduate unless they wanted new blood. What can you provide that someone who’s been in the industry 20 years can’t provide?
8. Read What Color Is Your Parachute? It covers job seeking, interviewing, and salary negotiation as well as identifying your true passion and learning more about the type of jobs you would really want to do.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

This Saturday, I realized that sometimes I’d rather data mine about my favorite movies. You’d think that NetFlix and Blockbuster would enable movie blogging–similar to Rhapsody’s send to blog. I know that feature films aren’t constantly playing in the background, nor are they 2:46 min long, but blockbuster doesn’t even do RSS–which is why NetFlix is so much cooler.

I’m still not sure why people STILL go to movie rental stores and pay $4 per movie. Maybe it’s because they are impulsive. Maybe it’s because they’ve only bought books online from Amazon.

If you are listening, NetFlix make one’s RSS of their Queue public–optionally, of course. Why? Because I ONLY watch cool movies.

Tonight’s readings/watching:

Security Now! 24: Questions and Answers

I, Cringely – Google’s Grand Plan to Take Over TV Advertising

I, Cringely – How Pay-Per-Click Is Killing the Traditional Publishing Industry (death to magazines by mail!)

I, Cringely – The Falafel Connection (NSA wiretaps explained–it’s based on data mining)

After Words: Ambassador L. Paul Bremer interviewed by James Hoagland

Afternote: I had to reinstall Apple Motion 2.0 last week in order to get it to work. Readers, if you are keeping track, that’s the third time in two months.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

We’ve all used a VCR to record a movie on TV, and now TiVO’s Digital Video Recorder does the same–just automatically. This is legal right?

From Replay Music’s website:

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA)

Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Section 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

(3) As used in this subsection ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù

(A) to ?¢‚Ǩ?ìcircumvent a technological measure?¢‚Ǩ¬ù means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

(B) a technological measure ?¢‚Ǩ?ìeffectively controls access to a work?¢‚Ǩ¬ù if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

So as long as you are not circumventing copyright protection and are not publically distributing (file copying?) a work, then you are legal?

This means that services like Replay Music are legal and programs that crack CSS like DVD Decrypter are not?

Either way, using Replay Music does violate Rhapsody’s and Yahoo’s Terms of Service. But does it make it illegal? Can the RIAA sue you and win?

So what about AnyDVD from Slysoft? It hides the CSS from your PC, but somehow doesn’t circumvent it?

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

Core attributes of Web 2.0

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

More on this by Tim O’Reilly.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com