I love finding web apps that are both ridiculously simple, easy to use and provide instant payback. Wordle is one such app. Created by Jonathan Feinberg, Wordle basically takes text you provide and converts it into a word cloud giving more prominence to those words which appear more frequently in the text provided. You can manually input text into a text box or provide an XML feed like I have with my del.ico.us feed below;
I have one of those days yesterday which ended with my laptop not recognising my external hard drive. As I have nearly 160GB worth of music, photos and web design resources, this was slightly concerning to me. Despite being a Freecom drive, Windows (XP) tried to find a driver for ‘Cypress AT2LP RC42′. I let Windows try and find the driver on the Internet (which has never worked for me ever) but to no avail.
Fearing the worst, I then turned all my hopes to Google and discovered (as per usual) that I wasn’t the first to have this problem. Basically, it wasn’t the drive that had the problems but the enclosure that houses the drive. The enclosure itself had threw a hissy fit and lost its driver therefore leaving the drive unrecognisable and inaccessible.
After trying several possible remedies, I stumbled upon my eventual solution. To cut a long solution short, I basically uninstalled the drive completely, downloaded a new driver for the enclosure then flashed the drive upon reconnection. As you can imagine, I was very relieved to see my drive come back to life..
However, it has given me in the kick up the arse I’ve been needed to invest in additional back-up media, I need something around the 320gb mark, any suggestions?
As you are no doubt aware, it’s not long now until the US has a new commander-in-chief and the interweb is awash with videos about the election, from serious analysis to political satire.
Alot of supporters on both sides have embraced the internet to push their message, but the majority are hashed together by video amateurs using Windows Movie Maker and although get the job done, they are quick and dirty.
However, I did spot this diamond among the rough on Digg, very pretty indeed;
p.s. I hope you do it Obama!
This was a busy week for us at BBC Switch as we launched the spanking new redesign of the site. A lot of work has gone into this, both from ourselves and the guys at GT who provided consultancy for the marketing and design.
For those of you who don’t know, Switch is the BBC’s youth brand aimed at 12-17 year olds. We have an expansive portfolio across TV, radio and obviously online.
This marks a big step forward for BBC Switch as it’s almost a year to the day since we launched the first version of the site on 20th October 2007. The site has grown massively since then as we have expanded our offering on all platforms and added alot of user generated content as our identity has become established.
However, it became clear earlier this year that there were issues that needed to be addressed.
- The overall asthetic of the site needed a facelift.
- We needed to be able to push our different brands more cohesively across the board
- We had a vast resource of video content that is growing all the time and needed to be categorised and easily accessible.
- The site needed to adhere to the updated BBC Visual Language that is now bringing all BBC sites to a universal standard across bbc.co.uk
- We were using several different flash players across the site to push our video content. The new site now uses the BBC’s universal Embedded Media Player
- The BBC as a whole has a new and improved masthead so we had to move Switch from Barley to Barlesque.
These requirements have all been addressed and we’re all quite pleased with ourselves now the new site is live. However, having been involved at such close quaters with the site, I can’t always see the woods for the trees. So, please let me know your thoughts, what would you change?
So..after all the speculation, the iPhone was launched yesterday in Apple’s flagship store in Regents St, London. The rumours were confirmed when O2 was unveiled as the network provider to have an exclusive deal with Apple. First time buyers will have to pay £269 to obtain the handset while tying themselves into a 18 month deal with 02.
Although I am very excited by the iPhone and the rave reviews it has received across the water in the US, I don’t think I’ll be queuing with my flask and blanket in the days leading up to the launch on November 9 and my reasoning is as follows;
But then again, by all reports it is one sexy piece of kit….
I am now officially a Client Side Coder for the BBC, working next to television centre in London! 
I applied for the position about three months ago after attending a presentation in the art college in Belfast. I was then shortlisted and asked to send examples of my work. Following that I was called to an interview which was three weeks ago today…
It was a very informal interview asking about my media habits, my team skills, my motivation and finally, some technical questions. At the end of the interview, I was offered the job on the spot…to say I was stunned was something of an understatement!
However, I knew straight away that this was an opportunity I can’t turn down so I start next Monday, the 9th July. I’m very much looking forward to it as I shall be part of a team of 18-20 graduates ranging from content writers to grapic designers to AV editors. I think there will be alot of scope for my personal and professional development, not to mention many of the perks working for such a large organisation has to offer….
I’m also pleased to say that my starting salary is double what I was offered in my first job interview in Belfast, although I am aware of the higher cost of living in London. However, its all new…and really quite exciting!
I’ll keep you posted…
I’ve broken the fundamental rule of blogging. For anyone who has been following this blog it will be blatantly apparent that I’ve got lazy over the past six weeks and haven’t bothered to blog. Well, in my defence, alot has been going on.. I finished my degree, exams all over and I got my results last week. I managed to achieve the Second Class Honours - Upper Division (2:1) so I can now look back and sigh about how it was all worth it…
Anyway, The upshot being, I intend to be alot more active from now on…
I had my first web design job interview on Friday past. It went quite well although I wouldn’t hold my breath. This is not because I didn’t perform well at interview, moreso because despite being advertised as a Multimedia Designer position, it became clear early in the interview that they were looking for a candidate with a strong skillset in 3d modelling. Although I have dabbled with 3d modelling to make quite the realistic model of myself in second year of my degree, I am by no means an expert and made this clear to the interviewer.
However, I did impress on the interviewer that I am very willing to learn and believe that starting any new job will involve a learning curve to an extent and that I think that I am more than capable of picking up any multimedia application and becoming quite competent in quite a short space of time. This is something that my degree course has always required me to do as, with the exception of Dreamweaver, I’ve had to adapt to using a range of software throughout my four years from sound editing packages to software integrated development environments.
Towards the end of the interview, the conversation was steered towards the ever sticky situation of money. When asked what my expectations were, I replied that I estimated a starting salary of £18-20,000 p/a. This was met with what can only be described as a look of disbelief and a swift dismissal, informing me that I should be expecting more in the range of £12-13,000. It was then explained to me that this may be more of a feasible salary in mainland UK but certainly not in Northern Ireland.
I had already realised that NI was behind the times in terms of the importance placed on the online marketplace, but hadn’t expected a starting salary to be quite as poor. Its certainly disappointing, especially as when speaking to a friend afterwards, was told that he started on a graduate salary of £11,000 in 1994 in software engineering. However, its not out of the realms of possibility that the interviewer, also the director of said company, was also being frugal in using shrewd business skills to try and entice a graduate whilst offering peanuts….
The search continues…
I have launched a new forum aimed at designers in Northern Ireland. The mission statement is as follows;
The aim of nidesigners.com is to bring together web/graphic/print/multimedia and all other designers within Northern Ireland to help, advise and network with the broader design community as a whole.
I set up this forum for a few reasons;
- Firstly, there isn’t currently a community of designers currently on-line from Northern Ireland. Or even Ireland for that matter…however, its not mutually exclusive to the Irish, I hope we will see designers from all over the world logging on.
- It will provide a medium for my soon to be former classmates in Interactive Multimedia Design to keep in touch
- It will provide a place to pool job opportunities within NI
- It will give me a chance to see if I can nurture and sustain an on-line community
- And lastly, through some subtle advertising down the line, I may even make a few dollars off the back of it.
I officially cracked the bottle against its side yesterday and it already has 35 registered members which I expect to grow to hopefully 100+ by the end of the week.
I am acutely aware that a forum can only survive if it has a solid user base so I’m doing all I can to promote it locally, i.e. an email to the entire course of BSc Interactive Multimedia Design, posters around UUJ, word of mouth and other methods besides. I then hope then when the ball starts to roll and the post count builds, Google will then pick threads up to pull in outside interest.
Lastly, if you are a designer reading this post, hop along and sign up, we’d love to hear from you!
So, the dust has settled and on the whole, Vista has failed to make any big waves. In fact, reception has been so lukewarm Dell has been forced to resurrect XP.
This is surprising in some ways but no so much on others. Surprising in that people generally want to the latest and greatest when it comes to technology but with so many people now relying heavily on their computers for their everyday lives, I’m not surprised that people don’t like the upheaval of an unfamiliar OS.
Its taken Microsoft so long to get to the stage where XP is relatively stable and works well with the majority of 3rd party software including peripherals such as phones and cameras (commonplace in every household in the country these days) that the task of disrupting this bliss to to have to find new drivers etc is something people don’t particularly relish.
Like wearing in a pair of new shoes, if you want to benefit from Vista, you’re going to have to stick through the transition period. However, it seems that many, including myself at the minute, are just as happy to slip into the old XP slippers…
