So I got me an iPhone from the US a week ago. Unfortunately I did not visit the hackint0sh forums beforehand, otherwise I would have known that you no longer can SIM-unlock it since new models got a new boot-loader. Fortunately there are some inexpensive hardware-hacks around, so no big deal.
But reading through the forums at Hacint0sh, it struck me how much frustration and anger silently Apple's move to silently disabling existing software-hacks has caused. Don't get me wrong, Apple's move to stop hackers from SIM-unlocking their device was expected and in my mind also just. In the end they are a public company and they're doing everything to increase their cash-flow. Someone at Apple - who probably is much smarter than any of us - has calculated that locking down a device to one operator and getting a share of the operators revenue is more lucrative than selling the device to anyone who wants it. Therefore they're just acting like any sane business would.
However, I most ponder what the hell has happened that locking down a phone to a certain operator even is possible. Think about these cases for a while:
What would you say that when you buy a new car that you have to agree to use only gas-stations from BP (all other stations would be incompatible with the tank's nossle).
Or that when buying a new PC, you'd also had to subscribe to two year expensive ISP contract?
Sounds really stupid, doesn't it? But hey, binding a device to a certain Telco operator is in my mind the same thing.
Ok,ok. I live in Finland. A year ago it was illegal to bundle a phone with a subscription. And now it's only possible for 3G devices (apparently our legislators bought the idea that 3G phones need to be pre-configured by the operator to be useful. My arse!).
Living in such a free country I get a rash whenever I hear of U.S. telcos.
When we launched WidSets news started come in that Sprint restricted socket connections to "3rd party services". My initial thought was "OMG, another great internet-wall of china". The same thought came to mind when a month ago T-Mobile restricted mobile access to Twitter overnight. Next morning they explained "that Twitter was not a supported service"...
If my operator did the same thing I probably would sue them just for the principle. Since when does the free (as if) world tolerate censorship? Come on guys, revolt!
I must again give it to the Apple designers, they've done a fantastic job in creating Leopard's GUI. Where visuals between Windows versions are plagued with the throw it away and redesign from scratch syndrome (aka not inveneted here syndrome, if the lead UI designer changed between versions), Apple designers seem to follow the mantra of changing things just enough to make the visuals appear fresh and modern.
The devil is truly in the details. Leopards visual changes are so small, but yet make a huge difference. The OS just feels much more modern compared to Tiger, and all it took was some settle changes here and there instead of throwing out all the visuals out and designing from scratch. As a user I hugely appreciate this kind of design. I feel comfortable and familiar from the first second, yet still there is a welcome freshness to the UI.
There are however a few things which I would have liked to see implemented. I don't know why Apple has made the decision to implement a slight delay when highlighting menu items. It's been there since 10.0, but in my mind it downgrades precision when navigating a large menu. When quickly moving the mouse over, say, 20 menu items, only a few items are highlighted along the way. This makes my Mac feel slow. The other thing is that UI controls still lack any rollover indication. I don't want the Windows christmas tree treatment, but a small, settle highlight when rolling over controls would again add some precision to daily UI tasks.
There's a lot of hate-mail on diverse websites from people who have upgraded to iLife '08 and found that the totally revamped iMovie lacked a lot of features from earlier releases. While that's totally true (although I really didn't care for the features people are now whining about), I think what they did with the interface is again something every UI designer should take a look at.
Taking the gesture of selecting a block of text and applying that to video clips sounds weird a first, but oh boy, it works! Skimming is again a first for Apple. A really simple idea which no-one thought of but everyone is bound to imitate. I know I will.
Again shortlisted at Cannes this year, and still no Lions. UPM Forrest Life, which was one of the two finalists, is in my mind one of the best productions we've done in the past year, so I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get a Lion to bring home. But what the heck, this just leaves us even more hungry for next year. Growl.
And yeah, only two projects were shortlisted from Finland, and both were made by us. So either we're really good or then the overall quality of Finnish interactive agencies is quite bad. I would actually guess its both.
So I bought a PS3 two days ago. I was looking forward to finally use my somewhat old HDTV to enjoy 720p action. Ok, I have had some decent action with my XBox360, but you know, that's still analog VGA.
The first thing that I thought was weird is that Sony does not ship the PS3 with any hires cables. No problem, i thought, just pay a few bucks more... As it turns out, Sony also does not sell any DVI-cables (my TV is about two years old and thus does not come with HDMI. Also the component input only allows for 576i). Luckily HDMI is just DVI+sound with a different plug, so I buy a HDMI->DVI cable. Now how do I get decent sound of my shiny PS3? With optical audio, of course. Unfortunately my amplifier does not support optical audio, so I head to a Hi-fi store and buy a new amplifier and optical wires. At last I have everything I need to enjoy superior picture quality.
I connect everything, select HDMI mode and.... nothing.
F*ck. I mess around a bit but the screen remains blank.
Googling around a bit I notice a lot of problems users are having with some HDTV's. A term that I've not heard before is in most posts: HDCP - High Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection. I've always thought of a TV being just a bloody stupid enhancement of the oscillator. A signal comes in and images are displayed. Boy have I been wrong. HDCP is a copy protection for the "last feet". The signal that comes out of your Blue-Ray or HD-DVD is still encrypted, so that swappers have no easy way of recording that data-stream, and HDCP encrypts it just before it hits the screen. Ok, this surely is something that a mere mortal does not need to know, does he?
Well, he does, if he has bought his LCD HDTV a few years ago.
As it turns out my f*cking LG RZ-32LZ50 does not support HDCP.
Err, I'm quite certain that the store that sold me the LG said that the TV is HD-Ready. HD-Ready is a strandard which basically says that the TV has at least 768p resolution and supports HDCP (since most HDTV services, be it satellite or blue ray require HDCP).
So what happened? Well, the store actually did not use the term that described HD-Ready standard, but they had a sticker on the TV which said "HD-Valmis". "Valmis" is a finnish word which translated into "Ready". So they did not user the standard HD-Ready, which would have given me something to complain about (they promised me something that was incorrect, which by Finnish consumer law would have given my complaint quite a bit of leverage). But because they just said "You know, this TV is ready for some of the future services because it has good resolution", I doubt I'll ever be able to have them refund anything.
The point of this story? If you're an early adapter of any technology, be sure that you know all the pitfalls involved, even if it's a simple consumer electronics product such as a TV, Microwave-oven or toaster.
Yeah, finally a Universal build of Photoshop. Adobe has announced that Photoshop CS3 (with additional beta stuff like the Adobe Device Central and Bridge) are going to be launched on Adobe labs today. Point your browsers there and keep hitting that refresh button.
Update: Still no frontpage coverage, but you can dowload PS CS3 here.
I just realized that it has been almost exactly ten years that I started to work in the industry. Wow, thats about 35% of my whole life. So what have I been doing the past 10 years (like professionally...)?
1996-2000, To the Point: TTP was a pioneer in multimedia, and created some of the best CD-Rom multimedia presentations of that time. I used Director a lot and wrote our "script-system", a framework on which every of TTP's later productions was based. The framework enabled designers to create complex products without the need of scripting. At that time it was really cool and made it possible for the team to focus on user experience rather than actual programming. To the Point is still alive, although it changed its name to Morning Digital Design after a merger.
2000, Razorfish Helsinki: I joined Razorfish in the beginning of 2000. I reckoned that To the Point was going nowhere, and that they had missed the web bandwagon, so I decided to hook up with one of the best web-companies of that time. I concentrated solely on Rich Media using Flash. A year later, Razorfish Helsinki was bankrupted by the U.S. management, although it still was making good profit.
2000 - present, Valve: I quickly quit Razorfish when my old buddies from To the Point called and wanted to think about founding a company of our own. I had been working for RF only for half a year, so I found it a little disturbing to leave that quickly, but in the end I just couldn't miss this opportunity. Almost six years later, I can say that it was a good choice to make. Valve has gown to be one of the most appreciated finnish digital media agencies.
For the last 5 years, I've been whoring a bit too much for advertising agencies, getting people to buy stuff they really don't need, excluding some odd products that even I bought ;). While designing and developing ad campaigns is at best very creative, I still have liked most working on real product development. Be it UI design for phones or PC applications, or the latest in Web 2.0 services, I really enjoy on putting my head on a product that I personally believe in and that is ultimately used by millions of other people.
I've been lucky enough to have been able to work for some cool and/or big clients, including Nokia, Siemens, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, UPM, StoraEnso and Exxon. Having such great clients enables you from time to time to be very creative. I don't know for sure how many awards the projects that I've been involved in have received, but it must be somewhat over 50. Most of these are finnish awards, but some international acknowledgment has also been given. New York Festivals gave us two times silver for ONE, a Nokia N-Gage campaign, LIAA and Cannes has shortlisted us a few times (for High Seize and Zeroforty, which is no longer online). And I remember that we received something from Clio as well, although I can't recall what :)
Over my lifetime I've had the possibility to work with several programming/markup/query/modeling-languages; Basic, Amos, Lingo, HTML, xHTML, CSS, JavaScript, SGML, XML, CFML, MXML, SQL, ActionScript 1/2/3, Java, C, C++, Objective-C, PHP, ASP, UML. And still - odd enough - there are enough brain-cells to fill with yet another syntax (or exterminate with some booze).
I've never really thought of doing something else, except Game Development... Oh yes. Game Studios build awful games these days. It seems that all the effort is being put into visuals and that games have become more like movies. Fair enough, some games do this really well and are fun to play, but whatever happened to all those absolutely fabulous game concepts of the 80's and early 90's? Pool of Radiance, Mule, Space Taxi, the early Ultima - god those we good games. And they all fit into 64 kb. And while the graphics were lousy, your imagination was hard at work to fill all the gaps.
Yeah, one day, I'll build a killer RPG... Until then, bring on the next 10 years.
On the 5th of July, at 16:15, our beautiful daughter was born. Below is a small video clip from when she opened her eyes for the very first time.
After spending four days with her now (and four sleepless nights, babies wake up every four hours to eat) I must say holding your own offspring in your arms is the most amazing thing that can happen to you
I just got my new iMac, after eight years of using a grey, dull PC (I used to work with Macs back in the MacOS 7 era). And I must say, just starting it up for the first time was the best user experience I've had in eight years. Smooth, beautiful and intelligent. Bootcamp was the last thing I needed to make the switch. First I thought that I would use Windows as the primary OS and MacOS X whenever I felt I needed some rest from ugly UI's, but as it turns out, I've not booted once into Windows after I installed it. MacOS X just rocks.
Lots of stuff coming our way. I was pleased to get a SMS when I was on vacation that we had received a silver, a bronze and a shortlist award for ONE at the New York Festivals. Also, we received a shortlist nomination at Eurobest for High Seize, another N-Gage title site.
Heh, also Markkinointi&Mainonta - Finland's biggest newspaper focusing on advertising - listed Finland's best advertising agencies (according to competition wins) in last Friday's paper. We were number 6. In case you don't know us, we're definitely no advertising agency but we happily accept the placement;)
We received the award for "Best creative agency" at SIME, the official "Grammy award" for the Internet industry in Scandinavia.
The jury's comments: To really be
recognized as the best creative agency you really have to stand out year after
year. This category's winner stands out by being so much more inspirational and
better than the rest. The winner has shown that combining digital media solutions and
understanding with a fresh user base idea offers the best possible added
value for the client. The winner is
Valve.
I just checked and I think I'm the only Finn attending , so only I can give the answer to the question that seems to be on every bodies mind: Are there any ice-bears in Finland? ;)
No really, it would be nice to have a chat with as many of you as possible. About Flash and Flex as much as about ice-bears.
Woah, we're really on fire. Clients keep on pouring in, and there are some very interesting projects going on or about to start. That's why we at Valve need to more excellent guys and gals to join our existing team of 35 pros to help us build the most engaging and valuable user experiences. We're looking for (full-time and freelance):
Flash developer(s)
HTML/PHP developer
Art Director
Graphics designer(s)
User interface designer
Concept designer
Copywriter
Project manager
These positions are open at our Helsinki office. While we primarily are looking for guys and gals from around Scandinavia, please feel free to apply if you don't mind cold and dark winters ;)
To apply, please send application, CV and references to me. More information will be posted on our website at www.valve.fi
So I filled out my profile in the introNetworks-application for MAX 2005. And I tried to fill it out correctly. I've got loads of soulmates experience and skillwise (upper right and lower right sections). Well, there's a lot of Flash developers coming to MAX. But take a look at the upper lefthand section. Thats personality. And no one is even close!
To be or not to be... That is not a good question, since it's kind of obvious if you're not self-destructive. How about: To code or to design? There are not many programmers out there, who can combine both, and in my mind that's sad. Programmers actually implement the stuff that the designers come up with, but I think the best person to implement a design is the inventor of the design. In some way, competence in implementation gives the programmer a better basis to start designing - he knows the possibilities of the technical environment, and in the best case this should not limit him, but give him a great platform to innovate from.
A friend of mine told me a great real-life example of how RIA's can help companies save money - without doing anything too fancy, really.
He was looking at a internal web application used by a lot of people. I don't remember if it was a HRM application or a software license management app, but it really does not matter. The thing was, that for some reason the app was used by a lot - counting both the number of users as well as time spend by those users. The apps main section is a long page with lots of drop-down menus. Each drop-down selection affects possible values for other drop-downs, thus requiring a refresh of the whole page after each drop-down selection.
Now this selecting-reloading-selecting procedure for that single page takes many minutes to complete. Multiply that with the number of users (a lot) and the number of use times per day (a lot) and you're basically throwing money out of the window.
Enter Flex. Convert that page of the app to MXML, make it reload the contents of the drop-downs without reloading the whole page and: voila! You're one-hour effort just saved hundreds of hours work-time every freakin' month. Simple.
What are the chances? Take a look at the two pictures below. The first one is from a web-site called Nylanderi, which we created about a year ago. The second one is from Studio 8: Meet Your Match, promoting Studio 8.
We of course had a much crappier video codec without alpha channel support, but it's amazing how two seperate agencies can come up with quiet the same look and feel. Even the aspect ration is almost the same. And I'm sure that whoever did the Studio 8-site has never actaully seen Nylanderi. Amazing!
I promised to post pictures from my journey to the timeline. A it turned out, Cambodia Telecom did not have GPRS (no suprise there), so I was not able to post beautiful pics from one of the seven wonders of the world - the Angkor Wat temples.
From Cambodia we returned to Thailand for half a day and then flew to Singapore. It must have been somewhere in Singapore (propably the China Jump club that is shown in the latest timeline post) that I lost my mobile phone. Well, phones are cheap enough in Bangkok, but I'm sad that I won't be able to post any more pics from my journey.
I'm heading towards eastern Asia today for a long and deserved (?) vacation. We'll be backpacking to Bangkok, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia. I hope to be able to relax on one of those numerous small Islands for a week or so, but I also look forward to the lively pulse of Singapore to stock up on the newest and smallest gadgets. Whenever there's GPRS available I'll try to post pictures from our journey to the time-line at the front-page.
Just noticed today that a few banners we produced had not been tested sufficiently... The thing was this: We produced a banner with a video ad. Now in Finland, none of the mainstream sites accept that any video-banners be streamed from their servers (in fear of bandwidth congestion), so we had to create a banner that essentially says "Click me to play the video" and after user interaction would start streaming the flv from one of our servers. As it turned out, the banner had a *slight* flaw and would actually start downloading the video instantly (but not display it).
Well, what happens when a banner on three major sites download a video from our servers the instant it appears?
A whopping 178 Gigabytes of traffic over just two days! Luckily our server at Magenta Sites didn't even cough (thanks guys for the great service!).
Way to go! We'll finnaly see Photoshop and Flash working hand in hand. No doubt that GoLive and Fireworks are the first products to be axed from the new lineup.
A bunch of us attended the "Vuoden Huiput"-gala last evening (annual advertising and graphic design competition).
We received gold for the "Tästä elämästä 24h"-campaign produced in co-operation with Hasan & Partners and silver for Nylanderi.fi. If that was not enough, we also received a honourable mention for "Tuntematon sotilas 50v".
The advertising people in Finland are known to throw very moist parties, and gold and silver in our pockets we gladly joined the celebration.
The Adidas-1 running-shoe features a microprocrssor capable of performing 5 million caluclations / second. The magnetic sensor monitors changes in weight, pace and surface type 1.000 times / sec and a tiny motor adjusts the heel cushion to an ideal level.
Beleieved to retailt at about 190€, this pair of shoes is a must for all sports-enthusiastic geeks (if there are any).
As usually technology has it's drawbacks: Now you need to replace the batteries for your shoes every 100th running-hour.
We've gotten used to lower standards in reliability on digital devices mainly due to increased complexity (an analog phone really couldn't crash, but you also couldn't take take video-footage with it...), but imagine your new car's brakes failing beacuse it can now talk you around traffic-jams.
Next time you want to make a nice dinner for your boy/girlfriend, wife, husband, partner, workmate or just a friend, why not try something Vietnamese? Yes, many Vietnamese dishes are a bit like Thai, but not quite. Vietnamese food and cooking is famous for its fresh flavors, and best of all, it's usually very light. Think of fresh, cold Vietnamese spring rolls, for example, which are much lighter and more refreshing than the usual deep fried Chinese rolls, familiar to us all. Vietnamese-recipes.com has pretty much all the recipes you can ask for, and if you're wondering where to get the ingredients in Helsinki (if that's where you are), try Vii Voan on Hämeentie.
So I bought a PS3 two days ago. I was looking forward to finally use my somewhat old HDTV to enjoy 720p action. Ok, I have had some decent action with my XBox360, but you know, that's still analog VGA.
