Cameron Moll: Designer, Speaker, Author

Magic Mouse, Fixed

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:02:01 -0500

Will Davidson:

The Magic Mouse does not contour to the users hand. So, being a product designer and manufacturer, I decided to see what I could do to fix it.

I started by building prototypes out of clay and testing them until I came up with one that fit my hand nicely and eliminated the wrist pains I was developing…. From there, I had it converted to a three-dimensional model and put into production.

/via @teehanlax

Bit Monsters Letterpress Print

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:41:00 -0500

Bit Monsters Letterpress Print:

Dan Cederholm’s “improbable marriage of pixels and paper.” Welcome to the ranks of the letterpress junkie, Dan.

"Video for Everybody": HTML5 'video' Compatibility, Sans JS

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:00:00 -0500

"Video for Everybody": HTML5 'video' Compatibility, Sans JS:

Similar to html5media but “without the use of JavaScript or browser-sniffing.” Two disclaimers: 1) I’ve not tried this trick myself, and 2) the amount of markup it requires may be no better than using JavaScript.

/via @taddgiles

Business Cards Made From Discarded Letterpress Posters

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:59:00 -0500

Business Cards Made From Discarded Letterpress Posters:

In addition to hauling tees around at SXSW, I’ll be carrying some of these business cards made from copies of my letterpress poster (first one) that weren’t fit for sale for one reason or another. Please ask for one, I’ll be happy to hand them out until they’re gone.

html5media Script Renders in Any Browser

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:59:00 -0500

html5media Script Renders in Any Browser:

As you’re probably aware, the element isn’t natively supported by all browsers (yet). This was the only missing piece in my attempt to make the Colosseo site fully HTML5, and it meant embedding the “making of” video via Vimeo (Flash) rather than storing it server-side and using something like the SublimeVideo player for playback.

Dave Hall’s html5media script is a transitional solution that allows you to use in your markup, and browsers that don’t yet support it will be fed a Flash-based player.

/via Daring Fireball

Authentic Jobs: February’s record month, and SXSW tees

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:44:33 -0500

Authentic Jobs: February’s record month, and SXSW tees:

Me, posting an update to the Authentic Jobs blog:

Last month, Authentic Jobs had a record month. More job openings were posted during February 2010 than any other month in our four-year history. For me, this is clearly an indication not only that we’re doing something right but that the industry’s economy is rebounding in impressive ways.

Also, be sure to read the part about the tee giveaway if you’ll be in Austin this weekend.

Speaking at 2010 HOW Design Conference

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:04:00 -0500

This year’s HOW Design Conference resumes in Denver, Colorado beginning June 9. Some of the brightest minds in the design industry, including Debbie Millman, Armin Vit, and Von Glitschka, will speak on topics that cover design inspiration, making the leap from print to web, copywriting, business plans, Photoshop tips, and much more.

I’ll be giving a reprise of Good vs. Great Design. This will be a repeat of last year’s session, but with new content that includes discussion about creative pausing, inspiration vs. influence, and the like.

I hope you’ll join us. Should you decide to, consider registering by tomorrow—that’s when the early bird discount ($200) ends. Plus, use discount code CM10 and you’ll save another $50 on the individual full-conference rate. This discount code is valid beyond tomorrow’s early-bird deadline.

I don’t get a kickback if you use my code, so I’m simply passing additional savings on to you. Further, I’ll be randomly selecting one person who uses my discount code to receive a free, signed copy of my Colosseo letterpress poster. And it’s likely I’ll have copies of the poster on-site available for purchase at the conference, as well.

Hope to see you in Denver.

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