Type this in a terminal then restart the Finder.
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
Field – Experimental Code and Art
Love this:
http://www.openendedgroup.com/field/
Field is a development environment for experimental code and digital art in the broadest of possible senses. While there are a great many development environments and digital art tools out there today, this one has been constructed with two key principles in mind:
- Embrace and extend — rather than make a personal, private and pristine code utopia, Field tries to bridge to as many libraries, programming languages, and ways of doing things as possible. The world doesn’t necessarily need another programming language or serial port library, nor do we have to pick and choose between data-flow systems, graphical user interfaces or purely textual programming — we can have it all in the right environment and we can both leverage the work of others and take control of our own tools and methods.
- Live code makes anything possible — Field tries to replace as many “features” with editable code as it can. Its programming language of choice is Python — a world class, highly respected and incredibly flexible language. As such, Field is intensely customizable, with the glue between interface objects and data modifiable inside Field itself. Field takes seriously the idea that its user — you — are a programmer / artist doing serious work and that you should be able to reconfigure your tools to suit your domain and style as closely as possible.
Web Dev Icons
Some useful stuff here:
http://speckyboy.com/2009/12/21/the-top-50-web-development-icon-sets-from-2009/
Pandora and the Song Decoders
I love Pandora and its human based suggestion engine, the Genome Project. In this article, The New York Times explores Pandora and how it and others find your new favorite song. And it isn’t by collaborative filtering…
“However things play out for Pandora as a business, its approach is worth understanding if you’re interested in the future of listening. It’s the “social” theories of music-liking that get most of the attention these days: systems that connect you with friends with similar tastes, or that rely on “collaborative filtering” strategies that cross-match your music-consumption habits with those of like-minded strangers. These popular approaches marginalize traditional gatekeepers; instead of trusting the talent scout, the radio programmer or the music critic, you trust your friends (actual or virtual), or maybe just “the crowd.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/magazine/18Pandora-t.html?em
ProtoDojo’s Nintendo Controller Secure USB Drive
Joven's Protodojo Nintendo USB Drive under construction
My pal Joven, over at ProtoDojo has been at it again, this time creating a secure Nintendo USB drive. Now THAT is a USB drive.
He writes about his motivation, “When cleaning out the garage a few weeks ago, I found my original Nintendo Entertainment System. Rather than sell it on ebay, I decided to do a few projects using this iconic video game system.
At first, I simply wanted to turn the controller into a flash drive and be one of the thousands of videos and blogs of people turning everyday objects into external memory, but ever since I got my first arduino working, I’ve been itching to do something different. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to add a security feature that required someone to enter the classic contra “30 lives” code before they could access the data?”
Check it out here:
Flash CS5 for iphone – well sorta…
Wonder about the performance, but worth checking out.
From Mike Chambers’ Blog, “The next version of Flash Authoring will enable developers to create stand-alone iPhone applications using Flash technologies (including ActionScript 3). These applications are just like any other iPhone application and can be distributed via the Apple iTunes Application store. Indeed, there are already a number of applications created with Flash on the store today.
One thing I want to stress is that this is for standalone applications, and is not the Flash Player for mobile Safari (which is something we continue to work on). The end result is a native iPhone application, and not a SWF that runs in the browser. We compile the SWF to a native application using LLVM. There is no requirement for the Flash Player / Adobe AIR Runtime to be installed on the device or included in the application. The end result is a native iPhone application.”
Harvard’s First Online Course: Justice
Take a front row seat at the first class Harvard has ever made available online, and perhaps meet the inspiration for Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
Justice is one of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history. Now it’s your turn to take the same journey in moral reflection that has captivated more than 14,000 students, as Harvard opens its classroom to the world.
In this twelve part series, Sandel challenges us with difficult moral dilemmas and asks our opinion about the right thing to do. He then asks us to examine our answers in the light of new scenarios. The results are often surprising, revealing that important moral questions are never black and white. This course also addresses the hot topics of our day—affirmative action, same-sex marriage, patriotism and rights—and Sandel shows us that we can revisit familiar controversies with a fresh perspective.
Check out the course here: http://justiceharvard.org/
New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/television/26sandel.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&em
Value of Front End Developers & the Web
Paul Carvill, a uk based web developer, interaction designer, user experience expert and information architect has a nice post on his blog about the role and value of the front-end developer:
http://www.paulcarvill.com/2009/09/why-front-end-developers-are-so-important-to-the-future-of-businesses-on-the-web/
Why Apple Supports HTML 5 (Sorry Adobe/Flash)
Interesting article over at apple insider on standards, apple, and html 5.
While the standard isn’t yet finished, Apple is already using HTML 5 as an important component in the company’s strategies, ranging from the iPod touch and iPhone’s mobile browser to Safari on the Mac and PC, from Dashboard widgets to new iTunes LP content, and from MobileMe apps to the latest iTunes Store.