My company has been using a custom built web application for storing and sharing marketing material for a few years. The application was probably good at the time it was made, but as with so much other custom made software, it has never been updated. And like most other web based tools from a few years back it was not very user friendly. It used hierarchical sorting, single item upload and download, and there was no search function.

Web 2.0 + good interface design

As the web is growing up, the browser based applications finally start resembling professional desktop application. We have now started using a web based digital asset management system called Fluxiom. It boasts a range of features such as instant thumbnail scaling, search, tagging, filtering, multi-item upload, multi-item select and download, sharing, preview with metadata, and an rss-feed. Many of these features are not unique to this program, and free sites like flickr gives you much of this plus community services. What makes Fluxiom different is the way the elegant and user friendly interface gives you a great overview of all your assets.

The beauty of physics

I have previously expressed my admiration for Autodesk’s principal scientists Jos Stam and Duncan Brinsmead. Now you can see the beauty of their work in their presentation of the new and revolutionary dynamic framework for Maya: Nucleus. I think this is well worth seeing even if you are not into Maya or 3D.

I started using WordPress with one of the default themes. That worked fine until I wanted to make some changes, so I found that it would be better to start from scratch to get complete control over every element on the page. The best solution seemed to be to build a new skin based on Blank Theme.

CSS only

It did not take too much time or effort to get from blank theme to the current layout. Apart from a few minor changes and bug fixes in the template files, almost all the work was done in the style sheet and in Photoshop.

The right tool for the job

Everything went like a dream after I found the wonderful program CSSEdit 2.0. CSSEdit makes both Dreamweaver and the web developer plugin for Firefox look like amateur toys. It is a really elegant way of working with style sheets that gives full control and a preview that updates instantly. My only complaint after using CSSEdit is that it does not display element sizes, and that it should be possible to select elements in the editor from the preview window. Still, anyone doing web design on a Mac should check out this little gem. And anyone not working on a Mac should cry their hearts out.

Help and be helped

CSSEdit lets you view any web page side by side with its style sheet to see how it is made.

It also lets you edit the style sheet (locally of course) to see how the changes would look instantly. This is great for collaborative work – or for asking others for help with your own style sheet. They can do all the necessary changes in CSSEdit and send you the corrected style sheet when they are done.

Let me know…

Please leave me a comment if something is not right with this site after the update. The result that you see here is to be considered a starting point for future updates. I know that things might look a little strange in Internet Explorer below version 7.0 due to the poor way IE handles transparent PNG’s. I do not have many visitors using IE, but I will probably fix this some day and make a version of this theme available for download.

It was recently announced that Maya 8.5 has been released as a universal binary with great new dynamic features by Jos Stam.

I am glad it appears that it was not right to doubt Autodesk’s commitment to Maya and the Macintosh.

A quick benchmark test comparing a single frame from the same scene rendered with Maya 8.0 and Maya 8.5 on the same MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo shows a 3.74 times render speed improvement (5,49 sec vs 1.47 secs respectively). The scene had nearly 650.000 faces and was rendered using MentalRay with final gather and caustics enabled.

Bill Gates held a keynote during CES where he gave another glimpse into new features of the upcoming Windows Vista Ultimate operating system. A single new feature, that is.

I would say the expectations should be quite high since this new feature is only available in the version named Ultimate. It is an ultimate disappointment to learn that the new feature is live video behind the desktop!

Vista has been accused being a shameless copy of an early version of Mac OS X, and the news from mr Gates does nothing to reduce the validity of this accusation. This feature is built into Mac OS X, but it is not promoted in any way. The reason is probably that it is great for showing off, but that in reality it is an utterly useless and resource consuming function.

You can easily take advantage of this feature using the command line or a little program called Quartz Desktop.

Update: A program that probably gets closer to DreamScene is DeskShade which allows you to play movies on the desktop as well as offering a wide variety of slideshow effects.

UPDATE: iWeb has been updated and improved since this was written.

This post is off topic in at least two ways: first of all, this blog is mostly about professional tools, and secondly this site is not about the author’s personal life. No rule without exceptions..

I recently became a father, and that was indeed a great experience! I mention it because it triggered me to start using Apple’s iWeb, and it also explains the low frequency of updates on this site recently. But why would I use iWeb when I already know WordPress so well? Read on and find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

I agree with Philippe Starck that inspiration for design work is best found in music, books and science, not in design itself. But seeing other great design work may also trigger ideas, and it can certainly give motivation to realize your own ideas.

The following sites are worth checking out for the witty, beautiful and innovative works collected there. I have a couple of ideas that I hope to publish there myself when I get around to it:

NOTCOT.org

The Cool Hunter

Productdose

Please comment if you know of other quality sites like the above!