In Depth: Microsoft Security Essentials: The big questions
Microsoft's free Security Essentials is all set to blow the anti-virus software industry apart, offering what the Redmond giant suggests is a 'high-quality, free, excellent anti-malware product'.
Obviously the arrival of a free product for consumers from perhaps the biggest name in software means that the major anti-malware software companies will have to compete with what could become a 300-pound gorilla.
But in interviews with Microsoft's UK Head of Security and Privacy Cliff Evans, Windows Client Product Manager Julia Owen and from PC security company Kaspersky David Emm, TechRadar found out exactly what the industry believes Microsoft Security Essentials will do to security on PCs.
TechRadar: What exactly does Microsoft Security Essentials bring to the average consumer?
MS Head of Security Cliff Evans (CE): Consumers could uninstall their other anti-virus software, install Security Essentials and know that they are going to get a high-quality, free, excellent anti-malware product.
Out primary purpose is making sure that as many people as possible have an anti-malware product and at the moment there are barriers to that.
Something we've focused on enormously is the idea that this is an install and forget program.
It will sit there quietly, update without any fuss, and it's integrated with all the right technologies.
This isn't a trial, this is the full product.
TR: Is this something that PC manufacturers are going to be pre-installing on new computers, or will it be left to the consumer to download the package?
Windows Client Product manager Julia Owen (JO): Our approach is to let people know about it and give the responsibility to do that to them.
It's the OEM's (original equipment manufacturer's) choice whether to install this or not. We're not going to say they must install this, people have to make that decision.
"Its down to people's choice, we're working with the OEMs but they can make the decision for themselves, we won't be pushing them to do this by any means.
TR: This is obviously going to have a big impact on AV (anti-virus) software companies, how is the industry reacting to this news?
Kaspersky's David Emm (DE): It would be naive to say it doesn't have any implications, but it will depend, I think, on how significant the impact will be.
We're not immediately concerned; if you look at the developments in the last 10 years or more in anti-virus software it has gone through several iterations.
These days, protection for consumers is a lot more than merely signature recognition. It is a lot more than strictly anti-virus (AV), a specific AV offering doesn't encompass all of that and clearly there is still a market place for other people.
TR: More cynical people will question exactly what is in this for Microsoft. Is it purely altruistic?
CE: It's okay to have that conversation; because obviously we are a business. I would say that lots of people are using Windows software, so it does make sense that we want to ensure that our customers are protected. Microsoft Security Essentials does, in many ways, protect the Windows ecosystem to ensure that it is secure.
TR: What impact can we expect this to have on a global level?
DE: One of [Microsoft's] aims was to put a product specifically into developing markets and one of the key reasons for that is that there are areas around globe where epidemics can get a foothold.
Microsoft is saying that if they can get the product in on that market then maybe we can help out in the places where the malware bubbles up. It can only be beneficial.
CE: It's available in 19 countries today with more to follow this year and next. We're trying to address that with a lightweight pure anti-malware product that can be installed on a less powered machine.
TR: Do you have any targets in terms of how many downloads you expect of Microsoft Security?
CE: We don't have targets, but we are geared up for a large number of downloads – we hope it will be very popular. We are preparing for that.
It's difficult to say how long its going to take. All we can do is put it out there and publicise it.
TR: Do you envisage a situation where AV companies complain to the European Commission about Microsoft's presence in this market?
DE: I don't think so. I don't see it as going back to the days of bundling browsers. There is a potential danger there, but I think Microsoft could make a very positive case for this kind of response to the problems of PC security.
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Review: Bare Bones TextWrangler 3.0
Back in the day, we used to happily tinker in the 'lite' version of BBEdit. To some extent, that's what TextWrangler resembles – it's essentially Bare Bones Software's highend text editor, lacking some high-end stuff.
What this means is that although you don't get things like HTML palettes, you do get an excellent tool for quick fire plain-text editing and a means of editing documents on servers.
However, the creaky old interface has seen better days. But, nonetheless, this app's worth downloading for its find and replace.
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Review: Altec Lansing Octiv AIR M812
You can't fault it for style. Altec Lansing's Octiv AIR wireless speaker system looks great on your wall or shelf, and because its sounds are beamed up to 100ft on the 2.4GHz wireless band, you don't have to position the stereo speaker unit near the transmitter.
As well as an iPod dock, the transmitter unit also offers an FM radio tuner with six presets and an auxiliary input, so you can connect any audio device with a 3.5mm headphone socket. You can also add up to seven extra speakers to stream your sounds throughout the house.
Alternatively, you can buy two units and define one speaker set as 'left' and the other as 'right', separating your sound into two channels. It's easy to set up, despite the woeful instructions.
You just switch both units on and they connect automatically. The dock transmitter charges any iPod that utilises a USB connection, and can broadcast music from older, FireWire-charged iPods without charging the device.
But it doesn't support the iPhone very well, forcing you to switch to Airplane Mode to listen to your tunes.
There's no facility to connect the transmitter dock to your Mac via USB for syncing, which is an opportunity missed, but you can broadcast from iTunes through the very useful auxiliary port.
The audio quality offered by the Octiv AIR is extremely good, offering a rich, solid sound with plenty of character. Bass is prominent and deep, but not at the expense of treble.
Indeed, both facets can be independently adjusted from the supplied hand controller, so you can set the mix to suit your tastes.
Since both speakers are housed in the same unit, it struggles to define the shape of the sound, but the detail is strong. And at 40 Watts per channel (or 80, if you use a two-unit stereo setup), you're not short of volume either.
Altec's Octiv AIR isn't cheap, but you're getting a high-quality system for your money. It's equally at home wall-mounted or on a shelf or table, and the iPod dock transmitter takes up very little room.
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Review: Tyler Hall VirtualHostX 2.0.4
Mac OS X includes a built-in web server, but it only enables you to host and test a single website. Although technically oriented Mac users will be fine digging around in hidden directories and editing files to manage virtual hosts, that's beyond the capabilities of many web designers.
VirtualHostX does away with such problems, enabling you to create a local domain name and choose a local path for each of your development websites.
For example, you might store development files for mywebsite.com in ~/Sites/mywebsite/ and use the development domain name mywebsite. dev for testing in browsers.
Changes to virtual hosts are applied by clicking Apply Changes and typing a password when prompted.
VirtualHostX earns further Brownie points in several ways. First, it encourages you to back up your existing server settings; plus amended settings can be backed up or restored at any time.
If you prefer MAMP or XAMPP to Apple's built-in server, VirtualHostX can deal with that, and advanced users can add custom directives. And via a simple checkbox you can share your hosts with other users on the same local network.
The foolproof nature of VirtualHostX coupled with its affordable price means it's a no-brainer for Macbased web designers working on multiple sites.
But even if you're technical and don't mind poking around config files, VirtualHostX still comes recommended, purely from a timesaving perspective.
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Guide: How to turn a spare Linux machine into a media server
Linux is brilliant at serving files. It's this ability that keeps the enterprise world turning to Linux for its heavy lifting jobs and that keeps the world Googling 24/7.
But it's just as good at serving files from a computer tucked away under the stairs or stuck in the loft, and a server in your house is now becoming an essential accessory.
Mobile phones, games consoles and even televisions are rapidly developing the ability to read, display and play files held on a media centre PC, and Linux is the perfect free software solution. All you need is a relatively low-powered PC, a decent amount of storage and somewhere safe to hide it.
1. Install the software
We've chosen to use Ubuntu Server Edition for two reasons. First, it's the same distribution that most people know and love, only optimised for use on a server. Second, you still have access to exactly the same packages and repositories as you do with with the desktop version, which makes installing and using software easy.
Put the disc into the machine you want to use as the server and select your language followed by 'Install Ubuntu Server'. Unlike the desktop version, there's no graphical installer. Instead you'll need to choose your configuration settings from the pages of options that appear throughout the installer.
Don't let this put you off; there aren't any questions that can't easily be answered, and the installation is effectively no different from a standard desktop installation.
The first question asks you again for the language, the second for your location and the third for your keyboard layout. After a brief pause, you'll be asked for a hostname. You might want to change this to something like 'mediaserver', rather than the default 'ubuntu' to avoid confusion with any other Ubuntu installations you may have running on the same network.
2. Partition the disk
The next installation step is disk configuration. This is a much more important consideration for a media server than it is for a standard desktop installation, because of the sheer volume of files that you'll be storing on it.
The most convenient solution is to use an old disk of around 10GB (or less) for the Linux installation and a high capacity drive for your media content. You can then select 'Guided – Use Entire Disk' on the installation page, then select the disk for the installation and give Ubuntu complete control over how it creates the installation. Your media storage disk can be configured later.
PARTITION YOUR DRIVE: If you create a separate root partition, you'll be able to update your system without worrying about your files
The second-best option is to create two partitions on a single drive, using the smaller partition for the root file system and the other partition for your data. This way, you can update the root partition if you need to, or easily back up your data partition without infecting it with system files.
After skipping through the partition section you'll be asked for your real name, username and password. You should give this a little more thought than with the desktop, as it's likely that your server will be on all the time and accessible from the internet, so a secure username/password combination is vital.
Press Continue to skip the HTTP proxy installation, and choose to install security updates automatically when asked. Finally, don't select any of the default server packages unless you want to enable SSH for remote administration then click on Continue to install the system.
3. Configure MediaTomb
We're now only a couple of steps away from a completion. When your machine restarts after installing all the main packages, you need to log in and type sudo apt-get install mediatomb into a terminal. This will grab the media-streaming software and install it on your system.
All you need to now is type mediatomb to run the server. Watch the output, because you should see something like the following:
2009-07-16 15:20:52 INFO: MediaTomb Web UI can be reached by following this link: 2009-07-16 15:20:52 INFO: http://192.168.1.89:49152/
This is the port and the IP address for the server, and you should now be able to point a web browser on the same network at this address and use the simple user interface to add the files and folders that contain your various bits of media.
After a few moments, the media should appear on any UPnP streaming client, such as those on a Playstation 3 and XBox 360.
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Review: Canon Pixma iP4700
The PIXMA iP4700 is Canon's latest five tank printer.
It isn't as feature-rich as some of its rivals, but it boasts auto-Duplex for doublesided printing, PictBridge for printing pictures directly from your camera, and it can print directly onto optical discs using the supplied CD LabelPrint application (Preview doesn't seem to line them up correctly).
Not much has changed from its predecessor, the iP4600. It now boasts an all-black design and recessed cable ports, and it's very slightly faster.
If you already have an iP4600, it definitely isn't worth upgrading. But the high standards set by its predecessor are carried over, and the lineage retains its position as the best single-format inkjet currently on the market.
The text quality offered by the iP4700 is great, with clear, sharp characters and almost no bleed. It printed our 20-page test document in three minutes, 12 seconds – slower than a dedicated office machine but more than acceptable for a home printer.
On plain paper and default settings, our test image was a little washed out, but beautifully clear. The greyscale ramp produced very little banding and the colours were accurate, if slightly light.
Using photo paper and maximum quality settings, the results were excellent, with vibrant colours and rich tones.
Canon's PIXMA iP4700 isn't packed with features. There's no Wi-Fi or Ethernet connectivity, no flash card reader and no LCD screen, but print quality is great. If you're after a printer at a good price, look no further.
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In Depth: Secrets from the world's top 20 web designers
What makes a world-class designer? It's a simple question and yet once we started compiling this list we realised it's not at all simple to answer.
Is it about pushing boundaries or holding fast to traditional principles? Should the body of work be judged on aesthetics or usability? Is fame or notoriety important, or just a distraction?
Ultimately, we've tried to balance all these considerations and more, and picked 20 figures who we all feel act as a beacon of inspiration to web builders everywhere. We hope you agree …
Jonathan Snook
"Design influence comes from multiple places," Snook says. "Sometimes that's from other designers. I do find myself more readily influenced by design in other mediums such as books, magazines and architecture. I'm particularly drawn to multi-storey buildings and how they embrace repetition while providing visual separation at various levels. I've always felt a connection to web design and its long, vertical nature."
Snook is quick to praise the work of his peers and singles out Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain (31three.com). "Not only does he have a nice design aesthetic, I think he also solves technical problems with design very well." Snook's advice to up-and-coming designers? "It's healthy to start the process by mimicking what other designers do. As you expand your horizons, you'll begin to develop a style of your own."
Jason Santa Maria
You'll know Jason Santa Maria's work even if you haven't gone looking for it. WordPress? That's one of his. A List Apart? Ma.gnolia's logo? Dictionary.com? Yep, yep and yep. "For me, inspiration is easy, but motivation is tougher," he explains. "I get fiercely inspired by print design, specifically editorial and book design. Just walking through a library makes me want to draw for days on end.
JASON SANTA MARIA: Jason Santa Maria's site is part portfolio, part blog and part playground. If you read it via RSS, you're missing most of the fun
On the other hand, my creative process is a rollercoaster of determination, self-doubt, sweat and procrastination." The best advice he's ever been given? "Don't be afraid to say no to a client. You're not a pair of hands. Stand up for your work."
Larissa Meek
It's the same old story: you're on a reality TV programme, you start a blog, you fall in love with WordPress and before long you're creative director with AgencyNet, picking up awards for your antismoking site OwnYourC.com (which, thanks to a recent and dramatic revamp, should mean more gongs).
Larissa Meek's story isn't quite that simple, however: she was a 3D animator long before anyone pointed a TV camera at her, and moving to Flash and CSS was a natural progression. So what inspires her? "I love playing with new visuals, but the most important aspect of inspiration is having an organising thought," she says.
LARISSA MEEK: The only real downside to revamping OwnYourC lies in the loss of the original website, which is a wonderfully quirky and warm piece of work
"An organising thought helps me focus my designs so they have meaning and purpose. We're really big on this at AgencyNet: it's a simple statement that you use as a benchmark for your creative decisions. It's more than just designing for design's sake."
When it comes to other designers, "I have to admit I can't pick just one," Meek says. "I am, however, addicted to www.behance.net. I visit daily for new bits of inspiration. I love the gamut of creative fields it covers. It shows you can find beauty in everything."
Andy Rutledge
The chief design strategist of Unit Interactive points out that the secret of successful design has more to do with perspiration than inspiration; that said, he's "inspired by anything and everything – just not every time. A game, a conversation, a book, packaging on a product at the grocery store, the layout of a restaurant; I never know what might inspire me or why inspiration strikes. But I tend not to rely on inspiration as a necessary component to good work."
Rutledge is particularly proud of redesigning Woot.com, which meant "launching a complete surprise redesign of a site with more than two million opinionated users, on whom Woot relies to make daily purchases – no pressure!". It could have been a $165m mistake; it wasn't. "It's become an ongoing project with many moving parts and additional components added regularly," Rutledge says.
"Every one of my staff have and are working with Woot designers and developers every week … It's an all-round team success in my book." What other designers does Rutledge rate? "How much room do you have here?" he says.
"This is a hard one, as my jaw drops quite frequently due to the design efforts of all sorts of people. Doug Bowman has been pretty darned consistent in producing jaw-dropping work that spans quite the breadth of context and application. That's nearly impossible to do impossibly well, and yet he's been doing it for quite a while."
Dan Cederholm
The founder of SimpleBits and co-founder of Cork'd is famed for his expertise in standards-based design, attracting clients including Google, MTV and ESPN. He also "plays a mean ukelele and occasionally wears a baseball cap".
From turning MTV's Flash extravaganza into clean XHTML/CSS to the stunning redesign of Mac audio firm Rogue Amoeba, Cederholm practices what he preaches in his books Handcrafted CSS, Bulletproof Web Design and Web Standards Solutions.
Eric Jordan
The founder of 2Advanced designs cutting-edge Flash for clients such as Adobe and Ford, but one of his favourite projects is version 3 of 2Advanced.com. "It was one of those projects that just didn't need a lot of revisions, over-thinking or storyboarding," he recalls.
"It was created at a time when Flash was relatively new and so you could feel this electricity in the air. It all just came together like magic. The site ended up winning the Adobe & FWA's most influential site of the decade award in 2006."
Jordan rates the 'fascinating' Peter Jaworowski of Ars Thanea: "His design is so vibrant and intricate; it's full of detail and love". But he worries that the work of too many young designers is becoming "excruciatingly minimalised due to the emergence of the Apple-design mentality that has been sweeping the industry".
His advice for new designers? "If you don't set yourself apart and you simply jump into the Web 2.0 glossy-button bandwagon you'll get lost in all the noise. Do what you do best, and don't be apologetic. When all is said and done you'll be recognised for how unique your work is."
Fabio Sasso
Abduzeedo is one of the most inspiring design sites on the internet, with stacks of hands-on tutorials from Sasso himself. If we were feeling trite we'd say it's proof that every cloud has a silver lining, as Sasso started the site "after I had lost all my stuff when my office was robbed". But we aren't, so we won't.
"I believe the most important thing is understanding the context of the work you have to get the inspiration for," Sasso says. "The first thing for me is to understand what I have to do and for who I'll be designing for, the target audience. Then I'll limit my possibilities and that will make the process of finding inspiration more efficient in books, sites and pretty much everywhere."
So which designers inspire him? "As far as influence goes, I have to mention Paul Rand, Carlos Segura and David Carson for their importance in design history," he says. "As for the web, I really admire Vitor Lourenأ§o, one of the designers behind Twitter. I love the simplicity of his work and how efficient it is. There are more guys, such as Collis Ta'eed from Envato, Jason Santa Maria and Jeffrey Zeldman, and there are the graphic designers, guys like James White, Joshua Davis, Eduardo Recife, Scott Hansen and many others."
Mike Precious
Asked to pick a favourite project, Mike Precious plumps for Candy Bouquet. "It represented an open and flexible collaboration environment between the client and myself," he explains. "The end result, with a few compromises, represents one of the web dev projects I produced with exceptional results." It's a typically gorgeous Precious production.
Where does this stuff come from? "I find my greatest source of inspiration comes from being away from anything to do with computers, the web and the daily grind of design disciplines," he explains. "For example, I recently designed and built a flagstone patio out the back of my home. I had the opportunity to get outdoors and experience a whole new palette of colours, textures, sizes and materials."
Such projects often feed into his work, as does online inspiration including "CSS galleries, Twitter and the occasional trip to YouTube for an informative or comedic video". His peers are another key influence. "Hats off to my colleague, Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain," he says.
"I've known Jesse for a number of years now, and while entering the web development community after working in print, he was a mentor and major influence both on the creative side of design and, even more so, in the technicalities of design. Other influences include Derek Nelson and Jason Santa Maria."
Mark Boulton
Mark Boulton used to work for Agency.com in London as an art director before working as senior designer for the BBC in Cardiff. "This was before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design," he explains.
His recent book Five Simple Steps has been described as a "triumph" (Jon Hicks), "The best web design book you can buy" (Malarkey) and "better than sex" by A List Apart (with the addendum: "Of course, being a magazine, I've never had sex").
Veerle Pieters
The standards evangelist and CEO of Duoh! has a dream: "My dream is that I have a small contribution in making the interweb a better place," she says. Pieters is particularly proud of the four years she spent working with the US Library of Congress on its Learning Page project: "They were always very challenging, most creative and a lot of fun."
And if we were to describe Pieters' work in a single word, fun would do nicely. There's a real sense of warmth and joy to her design work, whether it's a logo or a corporate CMS. "I usually get inspired the most if I'm in a happy mood, not pressured, a bit disconnected with the real world even," Pieters says.
"For me, inspiration has a lot to do with how I feel. In general if I'm happy I'm very perceptive for ideas. I often get ideas right before I fall asleep." Which designers make her jaw drop? "There are many," she says. "At the top of my list are Scott Hansen of ISO50, Robert Lindstrأ¶m of North Kingdom, James White and the very talented illustrator from Spain Mأ³nica Calvo."
Douglas Bowman
Twitter's creative director is "helping change the world, 140 characters at a time". Before joining Twitter, Bowman was visual design lead for an obscure dotcom called Google, and prior to that his Stopdesign firm built acclaimed sites and online applications for the likes of Blogger, Adaptive Path and Cathay Pacific Airways.
"In a world where data bits flow abundantly, our minds have developed filters to sift through the overflow of useless and badly designed information," he writes. "The presence of design should simplify and facilitate our everyday life, enable us to accomplish our tasks more effectively, and help us enjoy them along the way."
Jason Hickner
Hickner's favourite project isn't a website: it's Ektos, an energy management system he and his brother Ryan created. "We developed some pretty intense predictive algorithms," he says. "So far we've saved customers over $20million in electricity, and offset about 100,000 tons of CO2."
Hickner is particularly excited by the possibilities of multi-touch overlays and augmented reality. "What if there were no physical signage?" he asks.
"No billboards, no street signs, but whatever signage you wanted to see was drawn directly onto your retina. Imagine glowing arrows leading you to your destination, or pointing out your friends nearby. See something interesting? Make a gesture with your eye (up, then right?) to Google it. Write a column of numbers on paper and make an eye gesture to total them. I think we're on the edge of the most interesting and transformative technology we've seen yet, and I can't wait to build applications for it."
"Good problems are all around us, but they're hard to see because we've grown accustomed to most of the small inefficiencies and inconveniences that are built into the things we use," Hickner says.
"Try to get in the habit of seeing everything new. Instead of just using everyday objects and interfaces, pretend you're designing them. Really see their flaws, and think about what you would do differently. You probably have three or four good design problems within a few feet of you right now."
Brendan Dawes
magneticNorth's creative director is an author, sought-after speaker, Flash guru, a designer whose work has been showcased in the New York Museum of Modern Art, a blogger, a masked vigilante, and a man who admits to being inspired by Waitrose. Only one of those things isn't true, and it isn't the Waitrose bit.
"I try to notice things that quite often go unnoticed and try to fill my head with lots of disparate crap – usually nothing to do with computers, the web or any such stuff," he explains. "For instance, wandering around Waitrose is like a master class in typography. It may not be cool, but I've never cared about such things."
BRENDAN DAWES: Brendan Dawes is proud of magneticNorth's new site, which is defiantly experimental
Dawes is particularly proud of magneticNorth's new site, which is defiantly experimental and playful. "We wanted to create something that would provoke a reaction and create debate … it's always baffled me why many design companies choose to put 'different' stuff in an experimental section, hidden away, almost in an apologetic fashion."
Anatoly Zenkov
"I can do anything," says the strapline on Zenkov's website. From conceiving, modelling and programming a multi-user musical game to developing websites for MTV, his Flash work is characterised by its vivid visual style. For Zenkov, inspiration can come from anywhere.
"When I was a child I got an A2 size sketchbook, which was half of my height. And I had a dream of drawing the whole world on it, everything I that I knew and had seen. That old dream became the basis of Termit's site conception."
At other times, Zenkov deliberately tries things he isn't good at. "I'm a bad photographer, so I began to play photographer, sometimes a real one," he says. "An example of such mimicry is the actual front page of my own website."
ANATOLY ZENKOV: The utterly charming Eco Zoo was the FWA Site of the Year and .net readers voted it Interactive Site of the Year
Roxik
The word "genius" is bandied about all too frequently in design circles, but we think Roxik, aka Masayuki Kido, deserves the title. His Eco Zoo was the deserved winner of the .net Awards Interactive Site of the Year, and his 3D engine demos appear to have been beamed in from another planet.
Cameron Moll
With plaudits from the likes of Jeffrey Zeldman, books such as CSS Mastery (the second edition of which will be out later this year), a must-read blog and a portfolio of beautiful websites under his belt, you'd expect Cameron Moll to have a giant, rampaging ego. Nope.
"I'm not at a point in my career, and perhaps I'll never be, where I'm satisfied with the body of work I've produced," he says modestly. "I'm certain that I have much better work to produce." For Moll, inspiration can come from "just about anywhere. I grew up playing drums. I love astronomy. I did a lot of woodworking when I was younger. I'm enamoured by letterpress. I have four wonderful sons and a beautiful wife. All of these people and activities are partly or wholly some form of creativity, and ultimately a source of inspiration. It isn't difficult to draw ideas from these sources that in turn influence my work."
Moll is also "constantly inspired by the potential of upcoming designers. I love meeting other designers, especially those just beginning their careers, when I travel to speak at conferences. They'll often ask how I got where I am today with conference speaking, book writing and the like, and usually at some point in my reply I'll tell them that I expect to see them doing the same sometime later in their career. Plus, I'm competitive by nature, so it pushes me to be better, knowing some of the best talent we've yet to see is just around the corner."
What advice would he offer? "Master the instrument of design by studying and emulating work from those designers you admire most. Spend less time trying to define who you'll become and more time studying the greats that have come before you, past and present. Your artistic personality and individuality will emerge more readily and sustainably if you first become a great designer, second one who is known for a particular style or niche – not usually the other way around."
Shaun Inman
You create the intriguing www.designologue.com, sort out web typography by creating the sIFR (Shaun Inman Flash Replacement), and build the highly rated Mint analytics system.
SHAUN INMAN: Fever is one of the best RSS readers out there and well worth the $30 price tag
What next? If you're Shaun Inman, you then create the extraordinary RSS system Fever. And the Shortwave browser addon. And the Horror Vacui strategy game for iPods and iPhones. And a giant robot horse with laser beams for eyes. We made that last one up.
Carlos Ulloa
As if creating Papervision3D wasn't enough, Carlos Ulloa also produces beautiful work for firms such as Sony and Absolut. "I find inspiration in all things people enjoy," he says, "from nature itself, animals and plants to the latest interactive work being created on the PS3 and the iPhone. I'm also very interested in toys and games of all kinds."
"I love the work of Media Molecule in LittleBigPlanet, but also Q-Games for their PixelJunk games," he says. "On the iPhone, Simon Oliver never ceases to amaze me with the Rolando series. On the web my heart belongs to Hi-ReS! Having worked for them, I admire their work even more. I also like the attention to detail of unit9 and Grupo W from Mexico. And looking at the younger generations, I'm a big fan of the work of my friends Barcinski & Jeanjean."
The rally car on Ulloa's website is coming to the iPhone in a game called Helloracer, and there's also the small matter of Ulloa's studio website, HelloEnjoy.com, which will be unwrapped in September. "It's the most technically advanced piece I've worked on, but it's the interaction that makes it very special. After too many months fine-tuning it, I'm very happy with the result."
Martin Hughes
As famous for their irreverent attitude as their skills, it's perhaps unsurprising that WEFAIL have become the go-to guys for the more interesting bits of the music business, with a client roster including Eminem and the Dixie Chicks. Co-founder Hughes' own site is a bloody, disturbing mess, and we mean that as a compliment.
"In the early days I found inspiration from print designers and dragged all that into Flash, where I'd then ruin it all with my own take on it," Hughes says. "But nowadays I've become blinkered by my own stuff and haven't looked beyond it to see what everyone else is doing.
"That makes me a bad designer, shameful. But the last time I did actually lift my head up and had a look at what was going on in design land, it all looked a bit rubbish."
In addition to his own site – "I feel I really poured my soul out, you know, about losing my hair. It was the most difficult chapter of the site to work on, so many memories and tears came flooding out, and I think it shows" – Hughes is particularly proud of Julian Velard's site. "It was the last job that we pretty much had free reign over, so we could make it in any way we saw fit."
Who does Hughes rate? "Early Hi-ReS!, the movie sites they made … Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream, wonderful sites," he says. "I'll always love Neasden Control Centre and Michael C. Place, too."
Thierry Loa, aka Dr Hello
Hello Hello is rapidly running out of room for its various awards, and no wonder: Thierry Loa's been doing some jaw-dropping things with Flash, ranging from "surrealist presentations" for an architecture website to powerful corporate CMSes.
Of his myriad projects, Loa is particularly proud of the &Co Architects and MIKO Corporation websites, which enabled him "to explore and undertake interesting approaches to online communication and design". The good doctor is a writer, screenwriter, director, producer and proud user of a Pilot V7 rollerball pen with a 0.7mm tip.
"I always like to say that design is just a subset of what I do," he says. "Other creative disciplines inspire me a lot too, because to me design is just one form of creative communication and problem solving." Loa cites Dan Friedman's book, Radical Modernism, as a key influence. "That book and his words made me realise a very important thing," Loa explains. "Designers should be, above all, thinkers!"
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Opinion: Can internet users care about anything for longer than a week?
In the aftermath of the Iranian elections, the internet joined hands to support Iranian protesters. On Twitter, #iranelections became the hottest topic.
Ordinary people turned their avatars green to show their support and my Twitter feed filled up with retweets: tales from inside Iran, lists of proxy servers that protesters could use to evade Iranian censorship, and links to resources covering everything from encryption and Tor to how to treat bullet wounds.
And then Michael Jackson died. I'm writing this a week after the King of Pop's death, and while the avatars are still green the Iranian retweets have stopped. #iranelections is no longer at the top of Twitter's trending topics list: it's been deposed by Jackson, still, and by Moonfruit, which is running a competition for a free laptop.
The new Michael Mann film, Public Enemies, is in there too, nudging #iranelections further down the list. I'm not suggesting that nobody is interested in Iran any more, but it's clear that the rush of enthusiasm, of "everybody turn your avatar green and repost these proxies" messages, is over. Are we bored of Iran?
I think there's more to it than that. While the internet is an amazing resource for freedom – according to Demotix.com, if it weren't for the efforts of Iranian citizen journalists and Twitter users, 95 per cent of the news from Iran simply wouldn't reach us – the very nature of the net means it's hard to truly care.
We're magpies, drawn from one hot topic to the next. Two weeks ago, everybody was talking about Apple. Last week, they were saving Iran. This week, they're making Michael Jackson jokes. Perhaps they'll save Iran again next week, but I doubt it.
Online, everything's just words on a screen – so a tweet from an Iranian protestor is ultimately as real as an update from somebody playing Spymaster, and it scrolls off screen just as quickly.
From time to time something catches everybody's attention, and for a while it generates its own momentum: because everyone you follow is doing Iran, you'll do it too. But when their attention moves on, so will yours: to Michael Jackson jokes, or to free laptops, or to whatever people are talking about today.
There are, of course, exceptions. Some extraordinary people are doing extraordinary things to help ordinary Iranians. But by and large, Iranian protesters are as real to us online as anybody else – and that means they aren't real at all, so we can pick them up and put them down like a toddler with a big bunch of toys.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a few months from now, assuming Iran doesn't suddenly become a beacon of freedom (which isn't very likely; as I write this, anyone critical of the elections is now deemed an enemy of the state), #iranelections will still be one of the top 10 topics on Twitter.
Maybe the avatars will still be green. But I doubt it. We're the internet generation and we want instant gratification: a quick fix from a few quick clicks.
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Twitter founder rails against business plans
In a story to warm the cockles of those of us tired of cynical marketing ploys, Twitter's founder has denounced "MBA business plans" in favour of producing a service real people actually want.
Speaking to the Online News Association's gathering in San Francisco, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams defended his company's lack of income, pointing out that the bottom line isn't everything.
What you want to see
We'll surely hear plenty more of Williams' rather surprising mantra: "Create something that you want to see in the world, not what some MBA brandishing a business plan suggests."
He also told the conference, which ended on Saturday, that the recent $100 million (آ£63 million) funding injection doesn't put him under undue pressure to make Twitter profitable.
"I am motivated by the world telling me I am going to fail," he said.
One step at a time
To avoid that scenario, Williams discussed new and imminent Twitter functions, including Twitter Lists, a developers' tool and a better microblog search engine.
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Nokia in trouble in Brazil over Ovi marketing
How much difference can a single vowel make to a huge multinational like Nokia? In the case of its Brazilian operations, it seems, enough to land it in court.
The Finish firm has been using its well-known Ovi brand since 2007, but in Brazil it has run into trouble with telecoms company Ouvi Divulgacao e Marketing em Celulares Ltda, which has traded on its own Ouvi label for three years longer.
Carry on for now
Although the Brazilian group had asked for a preliminary injunction to stop Nokia using the Ovi marque, a judge has decided to let the Finns carry on for now.
Speaking to Reuters, a Nokia spokesperson said: "We are very pleased with that. We continue to believe we have a strong case."
Domain registration
However, Ouvi intends to appeal and it may yet stop the Nokia attempt to get its newest brand rolling.
In that effort the Brazilians' trump card may be the fact that they have long held the registration for the ovi.com.br internet domain to reflect the Portuguese pronunciation of 'Ouvi'.
More damning yet, Ouvi CEO Tore Haugland says customers are confused: "We have already had people calling our customer support thinking we were Nokia."
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Robot fish car stays safer through lasers
We've covered plenty of futuristic car-safety technology, notably from Toyota and Nissan, but the latter's latest robot car is definitely the first we've seen to attempt to mimic a fish.
While the EPORO prototype 'car' doesn't actually travel underwater, it does try to replicate the movement of fish in a school in an effort to navigate safely and avoid accidents.
UWB and lasers
To achieve that, EPORO cars 'speak' to each other using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio and measure their positions with laser range finders.
Once they know where they are in relation to each other and to their surroundings – so the theory goes – the tiny autonomous vehicles should be as safe as houses.
Six prototype EPOROs will be on show at the Ceatec exhibition in Japan this week and Nissan hopes to use the technology in road-going cars sometime in the future.
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Apple Mighty Mouse to go all multitouch
If you're one of the very few people who can tolerate using Apple's Mighty Mouse for day-to-day work on a Mac, then you'll likely be keen to hear about a rumoured change to the derided peripheral.
According to Apple Insider, the white mouse is set for a makeover when Cupertino announces its next range of iMac computers; probably within the month.
No more balls
That will, we're told, see the Mighty Mouse become touch-sensitive like the multitouch trackpads on recent MacBooks and do away with the top-mounted ball/scroll wheel.
There are no actual details on how the new mouse will work, but we can expect a range of gestures to trigger features such as scrolling, Exposأ© and, perhaps, iPhone-like pinching and zooming.
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Palm re-enables iTunes sync on Pre with webOS 1.2.1
Palm has issued a new update to its webOS platform that re-enables direct synchronisation to iTunes.
Despite being blocked from doing so on numerous occasions by iTunes updates, Palm keeps fixing the problem and has done so again with the latest 1.2.1 update for webOS, just days after the last version of the platform.
With the launch of the device imminent in the UK, Palm is doing a great job of keeping the Pre in the headlines, and this latest move is likely to incur Apple's ire.
According to Engadget, both Palm and Apple have complained to the USB Implementers Forum over the matter, with the former company stating the latter is deliberately blocking the Pre on its service and is violating policies in doing so.
Stoking fires
However, Digital Daily reported that the Forum has actually told Palm it doesn't have a case, and if it proceeds with its plans to mimic an Apple device to gain recognition on iTunes (which is a big no-no in USB guidelines) it will look into things further.
So it's interesting to see the latest move from Palm by stoking up the fires once more – is it worth it when you could just use the phone in normal mass storage mode like all the other manufacturers are forced to do?
Either way, we'll keep an eye on the story – after all the bad blood between the two this plot can only thicken.
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