I have been following Mac Funamizu’s work for quite a few years now and have always been in awe at his thought processes that results in his conceptual designs. Mac Funamizu is amongst the best, he is a web/graphic/industrial designer working in Tokyo, Japan. His blog petitinvention has a wealth of some of the most gorgeous designs I’ve seen.

These are some of my favourites.

This first design is a transparent futuristic desktop known as Zafiro. It resembles designs that wouldn’t be out of place in Sci-Fi movies such as The Island, or Minority Report. Transparent OLED panels are already out and about today, but not perfected just yet. Several transparent OLED designs were shown off at the CES show this January.

Zafiro concept

Aluminium Bevel

Data disk docking?

Deformable metal keyboard

My second favourite design of Mac’s is known as Looking Glass. It seems to resemble a futuristic tablet modelled on the Augmented Reality concept, where live overlays can be displayed on a device pointed at a building, or shop. Augmented Reality technology has been around since early 2009 and 2010. AR will become popular on high end mobile phones through the latter stages of 2010.

Looking Glass

AR means you can point the tablet at a building and get overlay info

Grab incoming weather data

My third favourite is called iPetals, a stunning solar charger and stand. Just gorgeous. You are better off checking it out on Mac’s site though as he has a ton of cool designs that are somewhat awe-inspiring. Mac also resides on Twitter!

2009 saw me pretty much ignore this blog in favour of Twitter. By now most of you have some idea as to what Twitter is, and I must say that I am addicted to the service being a heavy user. It has been another great year for Twitter growth. Everyone is talking about it, both positively and negatively – and whilst both topic’s are relevant, the negativity revolving the stereotypical usage of the service ignores one important trait – everyone uses the service in a different way.

Of course this is reinforced by the fact that the very premise of Twitter changed in 2009. The service used to ask you one simple question “What are you doing?”. In 2009 this changed to “What’s happening?”, as users began using the service for different end purposes. Twitter for me became a replacement from bloated (see MSN/WLM) Instant Messaging Clients. In addition I use it to find out what is happening around me – in my town of Harrow for instance, especially with the unreliable public transport.

This blog was created as a way to air my thoughts, which worked fine for sometime. As life progressed onwards so did my ‘time’. It takes time to compose and lay out a blog post, whereas on Twitter you can just mindlessly type out your thoughts – just be prepared for feedback from others. Oh by the way, the iPhone was made for Twittering!

2009 was to become my most challenging year at work yet. Organisational changes meant that I had more responsibility at work and I have to admit that I struggled to ‘balance the plates’ as it were. On many occasions I found that I had to ignore my own job in order to lend support to other departments, mostly because we were short of staff.

Our company has it’s lease expire sometime in 2011 so obviously we will be moving to areas unknown at present. Given that a vast proportion of our workforce consists of ladies in their 60′s, it is fair to say that they won’t be following the company should they move to a far off location. As for myself I’ll stick with the company and will be around to train new staff until I can ascertain travel requirements.

2009 was a year in which I became….an APPLE TART. Yeah baby! Ok so I had already owned an iPod Touch, and presently own a jailbroken iPhone 3G, which I am incredibly fond of as it forms a central part of my day to day life. On the other side of things I have been using the RC (Release Candidate) release of Windows 7 for quite sometime, well before it’s October 22nd launch and I wasn’t really happy for reasons I’ll not expand on (it’s better this way).

After doing a heap of research OSX seemed perfect for me. So I purchased a £750 refurb Macbook Pro from Apple’s Online store. Instead what I got was a Macbook, even though the OS (Operating System) and receipt state Macbook Pro. After much head scratching and reading of the MacRumours forums it turned out I had a rare Macbook Hybrid. For the money I had paid I had been gifted a higher spec machine, with an extra 2GB of RAM and a backlit keyboard, the latter of which isn’t a Macbook feature.

Mac OSX was a breath of fresh air. Having grown up around Windows from it’s very first incarnation, OSX was just so damn slick that I fell in love with the OS inside a week. It is just a beautfiul OS to use on a daily basis. No faffing about with stupid application installers, you just drag and drop install. Applications are all self contained so they don’t scatter dependent files all over the place – it just works!… (famous last words I’m sure) I now use my Macbook more than I do my monster overclocked dual core 3.7ghz PC, hooked upto 10 TB of data. I already have plans to buy an iMac but have no desk space for one just yet.

2009 was a key year for Mobile Phones. Apple pretty much scared the living shit out of phone manufacturers by releasing the first iPhone back in 2007.  They followed up with the 3G a year later, and in 2009 released the 3Gs…a speed bumped version of the 3G in the same body…with very little new features. By bringing out the first iPhone Apple were a good 3yrs ahead of the competition, however towards the end of 2009 the competition have caught up and surpassed Apple’s current model in terms of hardware anyway.

Alarm bells are ringing for Apple now, and in 2010 they will face incredible competition on all fronts. Apple’s success with their AppStore has also been their downfall, they just cannot control the sheer number of apps being submitted, and a great deal of poor/untasteful apps have been approved and removed from the store giving the AppStore a rather poor reputation with both developers and customers. Couple this with Apple’s dictatorship like stance over developing apps mean that this can only hurt them more.

June 2010 will see them launch the next iPhone – I can see the obvious larger storage capacity, faster CPU being present and an AMOLED (vastly vibrant/low power) display, which is long overdue. I just hope we get a half decent camera as 2-3mp is just laughable in 2009.

Mobile OS’s will be the highlight of 2010 as iPhone’s Mobile OSX goes head to head against Google’s Android OS, Palm’s WebOS and the somewhat antiquated but hardened Windows Mobile OS from Microsoft. Mobile applications will dominate 2010 and they will be powered by either of these systems.

2009 saw yours truly spend a month and a half out of work, with Post-Infectious Encephalitis. Whilst at work during October I had picked up a nasty cold that just wouldn’t go away, even with three courses of Antibiotics. I thought nothing of it and carried on working despite the fact that I was getting progressively worse.

On a random day towards the end of October I had gone into work in a rather dazed state, but assumed it was the cold messing me about. I was struggling to string a single sentence together when talking to colleagues, and had begun stammering badly. I suddenly realised something was wrong when I was operating some high pressure test equipment and almost performed a dreadful mistake that could have endangered my colleagues not to mention myself – however I stopped myself before any of that could happen. My actions were horribly clouded at this point and thinking methodologically was impossible.

I took some time off work and had some check-ups. A Computerized Tomography (CT) scan revealed that I had Encephalitis, the Post-Infectious type. In other words – inflamed brain tissue after one’s immune system mistakenly attacks the brain instead of a viral/flu infection. In my case I had inflamed tissue at the rear of my brain.

The following month saw me having sheer head pains, which were enough to bring me to my knees half the time, as well as an aversion to bright light, dizzy spells, and random anger bouts. I confined myself to my house after almost blacking out whilst shopping, only leaving to visit the corner-shop/doctor/hospital. Sleeping at night was a bastard and a half. I’d have major head pains and would have to wait to sleep until my body caved in from tiredness, often at 3am ffs.

Only a few work colleagues know, as well as my friend Ayesha who has spent this Christmas with me…as well as eating the contents of my fridge. It would crush my parents if they actually knew about all this.

Visiting hospitals, and having injections – things that I hate had now become a weekly thing for me. I remember being shattered when I was told that recovery couldn’t be measured in weeks but months, many months. My workplace has been quite good about it and told me to get better first. The thing is, where do you I go from here? How do you return to work knowing that you could be clobbered at any time by what resembles a nuclear strike within your head?

So this has been my 2009 in a nutshell. I wouldn’t at all put it down as a bad year but I do hope 2010 will treat me better! Now excuse me whilst I go off in search of PIE…MINCE PIE.

<–hurhur

Ok, admit it. How many of you lot have begun ignoring your blogs in favour of Twitter? Since returning to the fast growing service in February 2009 I am pretty much guilty of this as I have indeed ignored this blog, something I never thought I would do.

I suppose it is a multitude of things though. Yes Twitter is to blame, but aside from that I have been focusing on my working life pretty much 100% since the year began. I had enough distractions towards the end of 2008 and wanted to start the year fresh – and have done. So, work goes incredibly well. Too well infact and I am almost struggling to cope with some of the things now bestowed onto me.

I think Mr.Wud stated what I’ve had on my mind for a while now. I have noticed that a lot of bloggers since moving to Twitter have just let their blogs slowly gather dust, as it were. Blogging takes some thought, time and planning in some cases before one publishes a post. Twittering is limited to 140 characters a ‘tweet’ (message) so you can jibber-jabber about anything without a care in the world.

Does that mean my blog is pretty much stagnant i.e dead? Well no. I’ve put a lot of work into it, but time is precious, and after coming home from a long day at work I pretty much crash out on the bed/sofa. Twittering on the move is simple and quick, blogging isn’t so and that is my problem right there. I will continue to add reviews, and thoughts that cannot be twittered though but I predict things will be rather quiet for the most part.

Anyway, I’m pretty much looking forward to this summer. I had plans to visit Australia, NSW this April-May as I understand the weather isn’t hot at this time of the year. Heat=baad, Cold/Rain = Good. However as usual, those plans have gone tits up thanks to my parents who don’t want to go.

This summer see’s the arrival of the third iteration of Apple’s iPhone (the plodphone). I am excited as hell, even more-so with the new OS 3.0 that will be launched alongside it. My current Jailbroken iPhone is such a strong part of my everyday life that it’s hard as hell to live without it. I just can’t wait for the next version.

Windows 7 Release Candidate (Build 7100) was leaked onto the interwebs just a week ago and my, it is good enough to ship retail in it’s current state. I’ve presently got it sitting on my Samsung NC10 netbook and it quite literally flies in comparison to XP SP3, that was on there. I await soundcard drivers for my Auzentech Meridian er soundcard so I can install the RC release on my main desktop rig though. Oh, and we can now uninstall that heap of gobshite known as Internets Explorer!! How cool is that?

I had written a ‘short’ story over the past few months based on the Fallout universe and my adventures since discovering the game late during December 2008. However it has ballooned to such a size that I’ve no idea how to get it onto the blog! It was about my adventures in the game basically with a nice bit of fiction about my lone quest to get to Rivet City, and then to find ‘Dad’. Most people who know me know that I can pretty much sprout A4 paragraphs in minutes, so trust me – it is large!

Hmm, I gotta get out more!

Yes I know that one isn’t real!

Well up goes a review that I have struggled to even complete. It is a good couple of days late mainly because my life has been taken over by a combination of Team Fortress 2, Work (no change there then), a nagging girlfriend who wants to go shopping, and a France Booze Cruise in two weeks time. All of this isn’t helped by the fact that there are a whopping three birthday parties I have to attend, a wedding (hate these) and two PC’s I have to set-up for two clients all in October! Happy days eh?

Anyway, you can read how I feel about this spiffy new device in the reviews section or just click Here. Want a more detailed review? Well me good mate PR has been blithering on about his one, so you can find his review on his blog.

3 months of catfighting, backstabbing, and gurls!

Big Brother 2007 started a few days ago, and once again succeeded in surprising the nation as 11 females went in and not a single male. No problem there except if this lot represent modern UK society, we as nation are bloody screwed in more ways then one. First off into the house were two 18yr old twins Sam & Amanda, who cannot stop giggling, screaming, holding each other and a variety of other annoying things, which seemed to result in a lot of people reaching for the mute button on their remotes. These two look look like they’ll easily crack – give it a week tops.

There’s Charley, some ugly thing that is so over herself that she’s the hot favourite to be voted out first. She’s from East London, and the type of girl who hangs out at celeb joints hoping to pick up a rich footballer. She ‘does not work’ and wants lot of cash, and think’s she’s beautiful. I want to run her over with the nearest bus already. The others housemates are far from normal either. There’s Carole, a 53yr old Health Worker who I really like. She’s feisty and has attitude. I reckon Carole could be the person to keep everyone in check in that demented household. Then there’s Tracey, I’m not sure what that’s all about but I am already warming to her despite the fact that she looks like Freddy Kreuger. She has made me laugh quite a bit though!

Oh, I forgot to mention the lovely Chanelle, I liked her for 10seconds until she mentioned that her idol is Victoria Beckham who she aspires to. Why do girls of this generation aspire to a bloody plastic, frowning stick insect? Come off it, she can’t sing, her family is loaded and she’s shacked up with a footballer! She’s couldn’t even sing when she was in the spice girls, and girls actually think she’s cool? Noes!!

Last night the first male was thrown into the house, and despite PR’s predictions that he would be face down in the pool inside 24hrs he could be wrong. Upon entering the house he was almost jumped on by the twins, and interrogated for hours, which saw him consuming quite a bit of wine as a result. At one point he did wander over to the pool but nothing happened. Definate points for him actually surviving that moment because I know I couldn’t, I would have cracked having had so many questions thrown at me.

So far, the gorgeous Nicky is my favourite. I love her attitude, she’s pretty and she’s very level headed. I hoping she does well. I have also discovered that my girlfriend is a massive BB fan. We’ve been together for 7 months now and of all the things I’ve just found that out! She knows everything about BB from the very first series! Given that there’s sod all else on TV, and no US TV programmes to watch it looks like I’ll be joining her in watching BB. I mean, who wouldn’t want to watch girls sunbathing….outside and <gets dragged off by girlfriend>

How the hell did I miss this? Geroff moi land!

Right, let me just state that I have been using Paint Shop Pro for image editing since the Windows 3.1 days, back when it was a small feature packed app that could fit on a single high density floppy disk. Over the years I have always stuck with this product through all the operating systems that Microsoft have churned out for the consumer. I love PSP and was concerned when Corel acquired Jasc Software, creators of PSP. Merging is baaad folks – just look at AMD/ATI.

Anyway, my old version of PSP wouldn’t work with the newly installed Windows Vista, so I had to upgrade. Had to purchase the bugger too as I couldn’t upgrade. Now I’ve got to state that, without sounding like an arse I always make sure my PC’s are ultra secure and I observe every little file that lands on them, however I have missed one, which I stumbled across by accident when I was examining processes as my new Vista install has been rather slow web speed wise over the past few days.

Upon installation, PSP XI installs a service called PSIService.exe, which is required for the program to run. Why the hell does an image manipulation app require a service? Checking its description, it’s from a software licensing company called Protexis, who develop software copy protection systems. I never gave them permission to install anything on my rig? After turning to the almighty Google it turns out that I’m not the only person who has observed this. I can’t disable the service or PSP XI will not run full stop, and services can be a major pain in the rear on occasions if you mess with them.

No where, upon installation was I told that a third party program was to be installed on my machine, so I am more than annoyed. I don’t want some daft program sitting in the background observing my every action, nor do I want the thing to be consuming MY resources. Lastly, I want the sodding bugger off MY machine. I purchased PSP, I did not ask for any spyware to come with it. How pathetic is this? Of course what I have just stated is negated by the fact that no one ever reads the EULA, which clearly states:

1.5.4    Third Parties:
You acknowledge and agree that the Product may be incorporated into, and may incorporate itself into, software and other technology owned and controlled by third parties.  Any such third party software or technology that is incorporated in the Product falls under the scope of this License.  Any and all other third party software or technology that may be distributed together with the Product (“Bundled Third Party Software”) will be subject to you explicitly accepting a license agreement with that third party.  You acknowledge and agree that you have not entered into a contractual relationship with Corel regarding such Bundled Third Party Software and you will look solely to the applicable third party and not to Corel to enforce any of your rights.

Not a bad way to navigate around that Corel, except the consumer deserves to know what third party programs is being installed on their machines; otherwise it could be classed as a violation of privacy.

I am about to send off an email to Corel explaining this situation, and that I shall not be purchasing anymore of their products until they take a look at this issue in detail. I have found a fix to disable and remove PSIService.exe (Cheers Braden & Vorhees) and am will continue to use PSP XI accordingly. However, as stated you have just lost one hell of a loyal customer.

For those wondering how to get around this, detailed information can be found at Braden’s Corner of the Net.

Does it impress?

I’ve been writing about this for a while now, just collecting and scribbling down my experiences with this new operating system from Microsoft. It’s such a big system with so many drastic changes under the hood that at this early stage, it can have teething problems. Read my first two months experience Here.

Also a quick heads up, PR has updated his blog with a blinding review of the Toshiba M400 TalbotPC!

For those who don’t know, it’s the worlds largest meeting place where you can put up a profile of yourself, and meet other people. A lot of small upcoming bands tend to use this as a place to promote their music, which does work very well. However it’s also become a place where most users profiles consist of nothing but multiple poor pop videos, massive amounts of animated images, and enough multi-colored text to give even the most robust web browser a headache. It’s also a place where fit girls can flaunt themselves and er yes that bit is rather nice

So, they’ve become myspace sprongs but I shall not give in! Now I face a dilemma, do I link their names below with their myspace profiles or not? Anyways, they shall be named and shamed!

Pakman from Surly Wombat! Kitteh from Deconstruct.me.uk SHP from Cyberpunk Cafe Phil from the now deceased Halfmad.com MisterDead from #id – Only signed up to drool at the fit girls! Soth from #id – As above!