Gabocorp Still Rocks the House

I was disappointed when the FWA’s Most Infuential Flash site of the Decade poll did not include the first Flash site that really blew my mind – Gabocorp.

Rob at the FWA let me know that after 2 weeks of trying to locate Gabo, he’s finally found a version of Gabo’s 1997 site and put it online.

I remember first seeing the Gabocorp site (9 years ago!) and being blown away. At the time I was doing multimedia CD-ROM development using Visual Basic, C++ and Director. It was amazing – not only that you could achieve such smooth, seamless full-screen animations, but that that you could do it on the web! I knew I had to get into flash development.

The cinematic feel, use of sound, and seamless transitions still stand up today.

SimpleViewer v1.8 Released

I finally got around to updating SimpleViewer. SimpleViewer is a free, customizable image viewing app that’s been suprisingly popular – I currently get around 7,000 downloads a week. It can be time-consuming to provide support, but it’s also gratifying to know lots of people are enjoying my software.

You can view the list of new features and bug-fixes here. Most of these feature were based on user feedback from the forum. The previous SV code was a few years old now and was starting to show it’s age, so I re-coded it from scratch in AS2.

I also offer SimpleViewer-Pro for sale here. The new version of SimpleViewer-Pro is a lot easier to customize than the previous version.

I’d also like to say a big thanks to the people who have provided additional methods to generate SimpleViewer galleries, such as Porta, SimpleViewer iPhoto Export, SimpleViewerAdmin and FlickrViewer. Thanks!

Chimp playing Ms. Pac-Man Video

This awesome video proves that:

a) Pac-man has the easiest to understand UI of any game.
b) Chimps are exactly like us. Check out the bit where his power-pill runs out by the ghost’s house and he panics – I’ve done this many times myself.
c) Chimp experimenters have run out of useful things to test.

Via kotaku.

The Amazing $350 Disposable iPod

You’ve probably heard this before, but I now know it from first hand experience: iPods are designed to last no longer than 2 years.

My $350 30Gb iPod Photo was 1 month out of its 1 year warranty when it displayed the infamous ‘sad face of death’. After waiting in line to see my friendly neighborhood Apple ‘Genius’, the guy put the iPod up to his ear and pronounced the hard drive dead. He then told me that the iPod cannot be fixed for less than the price to replace it.

When I expressed dismay, he told me that the hard drive does not last as long if you ‘use it a lot’. He also told me that I could trade in the dead iPod for ‘10% off my next iPod’ – yeah that’s a great deal – at this rate I’ll be paying around $290 a year to use an iPod.

I would be interested to hear in the comments what’s the longest anyone has had an iPod working?

I’ve also added an excerpt from a great NY Times article on this subject below: Continue reading →

WTF, where is new websiet?

LOLZ!!

Adicolor Video Gallery

Adicolor – “adidas creates a film series celebrating color, customization and personal expression. The seven directors are Roman Coppola & Andy Bruntel, Neill Blomkamp, PSYOP, TRONIC, Saiman Chow, Charlie White, and HAPPY.”

If these are ads then sign me up for more! Includes this disturbing clip by Charlie White