Beyond the Still: An HD Video Contest by Canon

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:25:34 -0500

Beyond the Still: An HD Video Contest by Canon:

The idea is simple: Vimeo/Canon supply a still photograph, and contestants then submit short films based on the still. The contest comprises 7 chapters, with each chapter building on the previous one. Kind of like Layer Tennis, only with film.

The inaugural short film, “The Cabbie”, was filmed by Vincent Laforet with—you guessed it—a Canon 7D.

HTML5: The Difference Between , and

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:15:40 -0500

HTML5: The Difference Between , and :

If you’re confused as I was about when to use

vs.

when coding an HTML5 document, this article by Oli Studholme will help clear things up.

To decide which of these three elements is appropriate, first think if the enclosed content would make sense on it’s own in a feed reader—if so use
. If that’s not the case, is the enclosed content related? If so use
. Finally if there’s no semantic meaning use
. Except for occasional use to provide a hook for styles, I expect the humble
will mostly be superseded by
, and where required more specialised HTML5 elements.

I Could Move to Australia Solely to Live In This Home

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:04:48 -0500

I Could Move to Australia Solely to Live In This Home:

The view, the interior… absolutely stunning. On the market for roughly USD $2.5 million.

ColosseoType.com, An All-HTML5 Endeavor

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:29:00 -0500

ColosseoType.com, An All-HTML5 Endeavor:

The site for the Colosseo poster is my first production-ready website with HTML5 under the hood. I’ve coded sites semantically with HTML5 class names before (see Jon Tan’s article), but this is the first with legitimate HTML5 elements such as

and

in the markup.

IE doesn’t yet recognize HTML5, so I’ve added Remy Sharp’s HTML5 shiv script, which forces IE to acknowledge the new elements.

Granted, the Colosseo site is a one-pager, but hey, it’s a start.

Update: It looks like Firefox 2.x doesn’t play well with HTML5, either. Here’s another article from Remy Sharp on getting Firefox 2 to recognize HTML5. (Thanks to Brian over at Monoscope for pointing this out.)

Colosseo Letterpress Poster: Now Available

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:49:03 -0500

This is a behind-the-scenes look at the printing (and making) of the Colosseo. Purchase a copy here.

Also, read a little more about the successes and failures of creating the video in the description on Vimeo.

Phantom HD Camera: 1080p, 1,052 fps, $118,000 price tag

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:26:00 -0500

Phantom HD Camera: 1080p, 1,052 fps, $118,000 price tag:

Uncrate:

Sure, it costs as much as 47 Canon 5D MK IIs, but you’d need nearly that many — configured in some sort of crazy, Matrix-like setup — to match the unbelievable 1,052 fps high-speed 1080p recording of the Phantom HD Camera … and the ability to capture slow-motion gems like this and this.

New Design, New Host, and Tumblr: How, Why

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:00:00 -0500

The malware attack(s) that my site suffered in recent weeks put into motion a series of changes which have been planned for some time now—some for a few months, some for a couple years.

What follows is a detailed explanation of the changes.

New Design

Over Christmas Break in 2007, I started two redesigns: One for Authentic Jobs and another for this site. The premise for this realign encompassed a concept that wasn’t original, but one that I felt better suited my style of blogging.

You see, I’ve always enjoyed posting links as much as I’ve enjoyed posting articles. My previous design, which was published in early 2004 (and which can still be seen by visiting the archives), split these two categories of content independently and gave far greater visual emphasis to articles. In reality, articles and links were nearly equal to one another in my mind.

As a result, the design I began more than two years ago attempted to marry articles with links and provide a continuous stream of content for the reader, whether by RSS or by visiting the site directly. Again, the concept isn’t original. This style of blogging was most likely pioneered by John Gruber and has been repeated several times over by others since then.

In fact, a few months ago I chatted with John and shared my intentions to be sure I wasn’t infringing on the content model he’s championed so successfully. In short, he was fine with it, and even had this to say:

Honestly, I love this format so much I wish *more* sites used it. There are so many sites I like but don’t *love* because they don’t allow themselves to simply link to something with a few words rather than craft a 250-word wrapper for every entry.

In addition to a content realign, the aesthetics were deserving of attention, too. Bear in mind the previous design stood for more than 6 years. However, for some time now I’ve had an itch to return to something more minimal; something that placed greater emphasis on the content and less on the aesthetics, especially given the content realign. And so the design became what you see today—light on aesthetics, but still very much a reflection of the branding elements I’ve created for myself over the years.

And about that Swiss emblem. I’d be remiss not to mention that, as I get flak for it from time to time. Here’s the deal: My grandfather was born in Switzerland. That makes me one-quarter Swiss. This is a far cry from being full-Swiss, such as the likes of Tina Roth Eisenberg. But for me, the Swiss emblem represents not only a heritage I’m proud of but also a culture of wonderful, minimalist design that I try to emulate in some of my projects. (After all, I still have relatives in the country and have visited the country twice, so I’m not that removed from the former homeland.)

New Host

I’ve been with Media Temple almost since this site began. I’ve been through the ups and downs of service outages through the years, and while no host on the planet has 100% uptime, I’ve been through enough to encourage me to move on. Some of you have had flawless experiences with Media Temple. I, unfortunately, have not been one of them.

This site, therefore, is now hosted on the same dedicated server as Authentic Jobs, hosted at The Planet. We’ve not had perfect service with them either, but overall it’s been a positive, reliable experience.

Of course, the Tumblr part is hosted by Tumblr, and that leads to…

On Tumblr

This could very well turn out to be a horrible mistake, or it could play out really well for me. There’s no way of finding out without giving it a go, and that’s precisely what I’m doing.

I’ve foregone Movable Type as the software that powers this site and have chosen Tumblr instead. In short, I don’t know that I need full-featured blogging software anymore, at least not for this site. And while there are many great blogging/CMS platforms out there—WordPress, Squarespace, Harmony, and the like—I chose Tumblr because it makes customizing and posting almost as easy as Twitter. Frankly, most days that’s all I have time for.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t disadvantages to using Tumblr. Some are minimal, such as the lack of curly quotes and using an element instead of in the text. Others are more substantial, such as having little control over the software itself. Further, I’m still trying to iron out domain name issues so that “cameronmoll.com” stays pegged in the address bar, rather than the Tumblr URL. Currently, the only way to do this is to change the A record to point to Tumblr. This causes problems for previous URIs on my site, though the recently launched Pages feature is somewhat helpful in this regard.

All things considered, I expect Tumblr to only get better and become more extensible with age. If it doesn’t, I’ll be backing up my Tumblr account periodically should I need to move to another platform.

Tumblr also makes the content model you see here really easy to pull off. For the record, I don’t plan on following the canned Tumblr model that closely, that is to say, a blend of photos, quotes, links, etc. I intend to keep the site heavy on links and articles, and light on media, aside from the occasional embedded video.

And commenting? I’m leaving that off for now. I may enable it later (via Discus) for articles such as this. We’ll see. (Although, in the words of Dan Cederholm, perhaps the lack of commenting can be considered a feature.)

In the meantime, you can always find me on Twitter or send email to bored{at}cameronmoll if you’d like to express an opinion.

Thank you, Myles

Myles Grant, with whom I’ve worked for a few years now and the powerhouse behind Authentic Jobs, helped make all of these changes happen. He rocks, and this is a public thank you. Myles did some time at Flickr and now is helping the Tiny Speck team bring Glitch to life.

Thanks for reading. Fingers crossed everything works out as well as I hope it does.

Update: As John states, credit for the intermingled content idea may deservedly belong to Kottke.

Mike Davidson: A House by the Park

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:24:02 -0500
Mike Davidson: A House by the Park:
The venerable Mike Davidson is blogging about his homebuilding experience, complete with photos, product links, and total accumulated cost with each post. (Clicking the link in the sidebar to reveal pricing details will cookie your visit with pricing info.)

Drift Sumi-e Promotional Video, Shot with Canon 7D

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:18:00 -0500
Drift Sumi-e Promotional Video, Shot with Canon 7D:
All I can say is this: I absolutely love my Canon 7D.

Acrobatic Thieves Hit Best Buy, Get Away with $26,000 in Apple Laptops

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:12:00 -0500
Acrobatic Thieves Hit Best Buy, Get Away with $26,000 in Apple Laptops:
This reads like something out of a movie script:

They didn’t appear on store security cameras. They cut a hole in the roof and came in at a spot where the cameras were obscured by advertising banners.

And they left with some $26,000 in laptop computers, departing the same way they came in — down a 3-inch gas pipe that runs from the roof to the ground outside the store….

“High level of sophistication,” said Detective James Ryan, a police department spokesman. “They never set off any motion sensors. They never touched the floor. They rappelled in and rappelled out.”

Tumblr Backup for Mac

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:21:00 -0500
Tumblr Backup for Mac:
You’ve seen this already, right? Back up your Tumblr account (posts, drafts, and theme) using this desktop app. Currently available only for Mac users.

OK Go's “This Too Shall Pass” Music Video

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:12:00 -0500
OK Go's “This Too Shall Pass” Music Video:
What happens when you combine domino sequences, a 4-minute master shot, and a music video? You get this.

Whether or not CGI was involved, this is brilliant.

Nerd Merit Badges

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:52:00 -0500
Nerd Merit Badges:
Clearly, I’m well on my way to becoming an Eagle Scout. /via Swiss Miss

Tumblr Migration and Malware Update

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:56:00 -0500

cameronmoll.com was hacked pretty severely sometime (or multiple times) in the last few weeks. Because of this, many of you have seen malware warnings when visiting this site recently. I apologize.

All of this put into motion a series of events, many of which had already been planned for months—new design, switching hosts, and switching blog platforms. The malware issues were merely the catalyst for finally making changes.

The migration to Tumblr, as well as the site design, are a work in progress. Please bear with me. I’ll talk more soon about the hows and whys, too.

HOW Conference Early Bird Discount Ends March 12

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:00:00 -0500
HOW Conference Early Bird Discount Ends March 12:
I’ll be speaking, along with a host of incredible speakers. Use promo code CM10 and save $50 on the individual full-conference rate.

GaragePay for Mac: PayPal at a Glance

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:17:53 -0500
GaragePay for Mac: PayPal at a Glance:
If you’re on a Mac, and if you detest logging into your PayPal admin as much as I do, give this a try. I’ve been testing it out over the past couple weeks, and while it’s limited on features, it at least provides a good snapshot of incoming and outgoing payments without the need to log in.

QR Codes on Badges at SXSW

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:00:39 -0500
QR Codes on Badges at SXSW:
Although QR codes (also called matrix or 2D codes) have never really taken off here in the U.S., this will be fun to try out at SXSW:

Along with your badge photo, you will have a square bar code to scan. When you meet someone at an event, let them scan your badge with their smart phone, and they will automatically be following you on my.SXSW, where they can message you or access your contact information.

Font Aid IV for Haiti: "Coming Together" Font

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:32:00 -0500
Font Aid IV for Haiti: "Coming Together" Font:
Veer:

In response to the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the Society of Typographic Aficionados issued a call to action to the typographic and design communities to participate in Font Aid IV. The result was Coming Together, an OpenType font that contains over 400 ampersand glyphs designed by participants from around the world.

The “ampercross” Veer designed to promote the font is fabulous.

The Noteput interactive music table

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:19:00 -0500
The Noteput interactive music table:
Engadget:

Finally we get the chance to literally lay a track down…. Employing a simple camera beneath the surface, the table can tell what notes you’re placing upon it and play them back—individually when you position them or as a group once you hit the big play button.

This would be a great teaching tool for beginning music students, among other things.

Incase testing-friendly packaging

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:23:00 -0500
Incase testing-friendly packaging:
Incase:

Our research showed that consumers were opening packages and test-fitting products before making purchases. In most cases, the packages were not correctly returned to the shelves or were somewhat damaged and unsightly, making it difficult to sell these products. The design solution was to create an outer wrap that was easy to slide on and off, offering full access to the product without damaging the package. The sliding action of the wrap was simple and intuitive and did not involve additional flaps or mechanisms that the previous packaging employed.

This is brilliant and overdue thinking.

Cameron Moll: Designer, Speaker, Author

Beyond the Still: An HD Video Contest by Canon

HTML5: The Difference Between , and

I Could Move to Australia Solely to Live In This Home

ColosseoType.com, An All-HTML5 Endeavor