Software

Over the last few months I have saved up a number of drafts for blog entries, and am currently trying to get some of them online, while deleting others. Here’s one on active music software, and how both Microsoft and Apple try to get into this field. Active music is about creating solutions where the user experience is that of a participatory nature, as opposed to the (mostly) passive act of listening to pre-recorded music....

The latest beta version of Skype (for OSX only, apparently) offers something called “Skype Access”, which makes it possible to pay for access to commercial WiFi networks through a per minute basis using your SkypeOut account. I recall reading this when I downloaded the latest beta a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t think much about it before I opened my MacBook at the Brussels airport last week and saw a “do you want to pay using SkypeOut” message on screen....

I am back at work after a long vacation, and one of the first things I started doing this year was to reinstall several of my computers. There is nothing like a fresh start once in a while, with the added benefits of some extra hard disk space (not reinstalling all those programs I never use anyway) and performance benefits (incredible how fast a newly installed computer boots up!). I have been testing Ubuntu on an Asus eee for a while, and have been impressed by how easy it was to install and use....

I hadn’t thought about the lack of verb labels in Windows as opposed to OSX before I read this blog entry. The point made is that adding some meaning to the buttons we push greatly enhance the usability, since it is not necessary to read the text above the buttons. Look at the two examples below for a proof of concept: Simple idea and easy to implement!

I have been trying to create a booklet out of a standing A4 paper (the booklet size should be 105 x 297 mm), but this has proven to be much more difficult than I would have originally thought. It is a while since I have been doing things like this, and I still remember how easy it was to do such things back in the days when I used to use MS Publisher 1....

I have been using Leopard for a while, but hadn’t discovered some of the new features yet: Image adjustments Create alpha channels in images Combine PDFs Small enhancements, but they make for saving a few minutes here and there. Now I don’t have to open Photoshop or GraphicConverter to do simple image manipulation.

I am participating in the EyesWeb Week in Genoa this week. This morning Nicola Bernardini held a lecture about Free Software. I have heard him talk on this topic several times before, but as I have now some more experience on participating in a Free Software project (i.e. Jamoma), I got more out of his ideas. Some main points from the talk: Use Free Software! Freeware and shareware may have nothing to do with Free Software....

{#image489} I am doing some background research for a paper on “active music” and have been testing various audio software over the last few days. I was very excited about testing GarageBand ’08, since Apple has been shouting loudly about its new “magic” features. I have to say that I had some expectations that we would actually see some novel features here, especially since they promise a “hand-picked” band on a virtual stage....

I see that Jack is now truly multiplatform, including Windows. jackdmp is a C++ version of the Jack low-latency audio server for multi-processor machines. It is a new implementation of the jack server core features that aims in removing some limitations of the current design. The activation system has been changed for a data flow model and lock-free programming techniques for graph access have been used to have a more dynamic and robust system....

Vegard mentioned QuickTime Broadcaster in a blog entry yesterday. While QT broadcaster is certainly easy to set up and use, I have found it even easier to use some of the video broadcasting solutions in Max/MSP/Jitter. The jit.qt.broadcast object allows for QT streaming, but I have found the jit.broadcast object using RTSP to be somewhat more stable. Using Jitter also opens for all sorts of image manipulation, text overlays etc. as we are used to in the Max/MSP world....