It’s like Frankenstein built a logo

A couple of people liked the idea, but thought the typography was lacking. So the next day I had a go at sprucing it up, and re-doing the typography.

Getting there. Better colours and font choice.

I’m much happier with this, but I thought it was still missing something. So yesterday I made up the following. I really like it. Mil thinks its a little less clear, but I think you can see a bit of the Aussie outback in it now which is a nice touch (if I do say so myself). In case you’ve missed it, the logo is a stylised Australia, made of concentric rings (the de-facto symbol of podcasts) with a wire-in-circle in the centre to emphasis the “tech” or perhaps the “wired” in the name. I chose orange as it’s the colour of RSS feeds, but it doesn’t need to be orange—it could be any colour.

Font=Nevis Bold by Ten by Twenty.

This helped me settle on a final form for the typography, and I decided to put together a logo pack to showcase the versatility of the logo in different forms. They don’t quite meet the requirements of the competition though, so I’m posting them here rather than cluttering up the forum the competition is running on.

First up, a horizontal version that separates the typography from the logo. The original brief asked that the logo contain the title “Tech Wired Australia” but I feel that a true logo needs to stand alone. I created this version to give a sense of how the logo could stand by itself to some degree within the design.

My favourite design. Doesn’t meet the brief. Discarded

Next up, a mono-colour version as an example of how you could use the logo in a less colourful design (perhaps as a promotional badge, or on a sub-page you wish to stand out from the main site in some way).

Ooh, shiny and dark

The next two styles are just variations I tried, that although not as visually appealing as the few designs above, show the versatility of the design and some of the possibilities.

Meh.

No orange sea. No work as well.

Finally, just for fun, and as a bit of cheeky poke to help tip things in my favour, I’ve included an iPhone bookmark icon, and a couple of favicons.

Can you blame me for trying?

Hopefully this has been a little insight into my creative process. Check out the thread, and let me know how my attempt compares to some of the others. All constructive criticism welcome!

Please note: the designs showcased here are not under my usual Creative Commons Licence. I reserve all right to them up to the point that they (might) become property of the Tech Wired team. You may not use them to create derivative works, or use them in your own products.

Update: 2008-11-05Minutes after I posted this, and put up my final submission they announced the winner! And it wasn’t me… But that’s OK, because they offered me a conciliatory $20 iTunes card because they liked my logo and want to use it on their website. You see the key here is, I misunderstood the brief—they wanted a “podcast logo”, and it didn’t click for me that this meant some thing like album art to display in iTunes. Clearly the person who won understood this immediately. I came at the whole thing thinking they were going to re-design their website. I’m kinda glad I misunderstood though, as if I’d realised what they wanted, I possibly wouldn’t have have bothered, and then I wouldn’t have learned what I learned from this competition. Including this tidbit: if the brief is unclear, get it clarified before you produce something the client doesn’t really want!

A week or two ago, a clip of Burgess Meredith’s Penguin debating Adam West’s Batman went around, comparing the Penguin’s dirty tactics to McCain. It just so happened that I had just reached this double episode Hizzoner The Penguin/Dizzoner The Penguin during my monthly Bacon and Batman Breakfast, and figured that this clip was even more pertinent to the current elections.

It seems to me that we (society/schools/the world) tend to rely on technology in two ways. The first is to rely on it to actually work - we expect our computers, email and Intranet page to be working first thing in the morning until 10 o’clock at night (or later). We expect it to work without glitch or bug or problem. Of course by ‘expect’ I really mean ‘cross our fingers and hope’. The way we work belies our hope—we back up, use save often and pray that nothing breaks when we try something new. Some of the more tech-savvy of us (or the more adventurous) quickly rely on technology more than we should. But when our USB device fails or our email service is down, we admit fault for expecting rather than hoping.

Then there is the other way we rely on technology. It began when we (and again I mean ‘we’ as a collective) first sat our kids in front of the television and went off to do our own thing. It has continued until today, but now includes DVD’s, video games, “the computer” and now the Internet. The reliance we have developed is more than just ‘expecting it to work’. We now expect it to fill a role it was never meant to fill, namely: taking over our children’s education and keeping them occupied. Technology-as-babysitter is giving technology far, far more credit than it deserves for being reliable. When our technology lets us down in so many other areas why do we continue to trust it with the minds of our children?

Not long ago I arrived at school to reports that ‘the Internet’ wasn’t working properly - people couldn’t access their email. “Nothing new there”, I thought as I logged in to check the problem myself. What I noticed wasn’t a problem with email, but a problem with the proxy - the device that sits between every school in the state and the big wide world of the Internet. It was letting everyone through without identification, and wasn’t filtering their results as it should have been doing. Just to test this, I surfed to MySpace - a site that is definitely on the block list - and was not stopped. I alerted the powers-that-be, and warned the relevant people within my schools, and the problem was soon resolved.

Now it just so happens, that the day before I had already begun thinking about this very topic and started formulating this post. Day after day I hear of staff who sit removed from their students while the students circumvent the filtering and accounting mechanisms we have in place. Schools around the state add daily to the list of blocked sites in an effort to keep our systems clean and safe. And it’s a losing battle—there are more of these sites then anyone could ever find. What we are discovering is what we really should have already known: technology is a poor substitute for real people. The only thing that will minimise the abuse of these new technologies as they emerge is real hands-on teaching that engages the students and keeps them interested in learning.

Please don’t get me wrong—I know that teachers know this. I also know how easy it is to say, but how difficult it is to achieve. Teachers are already too busy, support staff stretched too thin. I know I could never be a teacher, because I see how much work it takes. But working with technology daily, I’m constantly reminded that we cannot rely on technology too much. We certainly shouldn’t rely on it to take our place. Believing that a computer can replace a teacher is just begging for trouble.

We need to daily examine how we teach. Like good computer maintenance we should never get complacent or trust that our technology will always act as we imagine it should. Every system we use, every piece of equipment in place will fail. Nothing can prevent it if we imagine that it can keep a young mind entertained, educated and safe without a human hand guiding it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Are Video Games the New Textbooks?
• Gizmos to make school life more fun
• Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media: An Opinionated Digest by George Siemens - June 1 08
• Facebook a valid educational tool, teachers told
• Having A School Block Wikipedia Does Not Further The Cause Of Education
• Can New Media Be Taught in Schools?

Andrew asked how he could create a ringtone for his new iPhone. He knew it was possible, but it’s really not straight forward (in Australia at least, elsewhere iTunes has this functionality built in). So I’ve whipped up this little tutorial for him to remind him how to do it.

Some rules:

• You need to have the right to use the music you’re using. The music should be DRM free. Technically I don’t have the right to use the song in my example.
• The ringtone has to be 30 seconds long, and no longer. It’s worth spending time finding exactly the section you want
• You can use music you have created yourself. You can create and export it as AAC, or you could just drag it into iTunes and follow my instructions

Creating iPhone Ringtones from Joshua Nunn on Vimeo

I hope this tutorial is helpful. I know there are a ton of pages that go through this process, but Andrew reads this site. I’m also not sure if it will work on Windows, maybe someone can try it and tell me.

Thank you for watching.

Related articles by Zemanta

• iToner 1.0.8 ready for iPhone 2.0
• RingtoneFeeder supplies your iPhone with ringtones
• Create Free Ringtones In iTunes

Understanding “position:absolute”

The selector position:absolute is relative to the closest parent element explicitly marked with position:relative. If nothing is marked with position:relative the element will be absolute from the top of the page.

In my theme, I wanted to attach the post meta-information in its own seperate column on the left there. In the flow of the page, the meta-information sits above the entry.

This is my HTML:

<div class="post">
	<div class="postmetatext">
		<p>Post meta-information</p>
	</div>
	<h2>Post Title</h2>
	<div class="entry">
		[...]
	</div>
</div>

The problem with positioning elements is that if I move the “postmetatext” element to the left, the following heading and the “entry” div get shifted as well. What I want is to keep them in the flow, but move the “postmetatext” div outside the margins of the “post” div.

To force the div marked “postmetatext” outside the margins, I had to use position:absolute, but then the text sat in a position that was absolutely aligned with the top of the page. By marking up the “post” div with position:relative, I reset the absolute positioning on the “postmetatext” child element.

The CSS:

.post {
position:relative;
}

.postmetatext {
top:0.3em;  /* This shifts the text down to align with the top of the heading below */
left:-10em; /* This shifts the text to the left */
position:absolute;
}

Don’t use “padding” for positioning when “margin” will do

Internet Explorer will give you grief if you rely exclusively on padding for positioning. I can’t think why you might, but one of my rookie mistakes was using padding a little too liberally, and fantastic layouts were entirely ruined on IE. By using the margin selector where it made no difference otherwise, I created a layout that works in pretty much every browser I threw at it.

But don’t use “margin” for positioning absolute elements

In the example above, I used top and left to spin the post meta-information out into the left column. Again, this will save you grief in IE and works well cross-browser. Using margin in combination with position:relative can be very unpredictable from browser to browser.

The cure-all: clear:both

This is the answer to all your problems. Inline elements stacking on top of each other? clear:both. Footer hovering up near your header? clear:both. Wife nagging you to take out the garbage?clear:both.

OK, so it’s not going to fix all your problems, but when you’re using floats, clear:both will help put everything back in it’s place when everything is riding up all in your face. A floated element will sit to the right (or left) of the previous element unless “cleared” You can clear to the left or right, but clear:both tells the element to shove down and stay below the previous element regardless of what else is going on. Perhaps I over-use it in my designs, but it seriously solves so many problems I just can’t help myself.

I know, I know

These few things are not advanced CSS tricks. They aren’t things that other CSS coders won’t already know. They’re probably obvious to anyone who bothered to read the CSS specification. But they’re my early mistakes, and they’re hard learned through through trial and error and checking my code against the beautiful code of my superiors. I offer them in the hopes they might help someone, and so I might remember them for next time.

I want to upgrade my media viewing so that I can access all the digital media I have on my various computers, including photos, iTunes music and downloaded movies. At the moment I have a standard definition PVR for recording TV, a DVD player and my Television. All my content is on a Mac Mini in another room. I’ve thought about my options, and included a handy chart that spells out my desired features and how close the different options come to my ideal.

(+ embiggen)

What I need is a few people to review my chart and tell me if I’ve missed anything, and maybe offer up some suggestions. Price is a big consideration. I have very few funds to throw around and currently all I can afford is the iPhone Dock option which would satisfy my “Essentials” list. What I need to know is whether to take that option now, or save my pennies (and goodness knows how long that will take) to get something better.

The final two options on the chart are my “homebrew” options— to use an old computer I have knocking around and add the necessary hardware to achieve my plan. They seem the best, and most feature-rich options and it might seem obvious from the chart that a Windows-based media centre is the answer. The reason I haven’t already started is that the job, whilst doable, would be relatively complex (compared to the other options) and I don’t want to waste all my time fiddling with this when I could be playing with my new daughter. It’s also a fairly costly option.

The last to rows on the chart should be weighted to “time”— that is: the more costly or complex, the longer it will take. And I’m impatient by nature so I’d need a good reason to hold off and spend lots.

Are there any easier/cheaper options I’ve not thought about? I’ve deliberately left off the option of a hacked XBOX, as I felt it lacked a few to many features, please correct me if I’m wrong.

Hello!

Hi Amelynne Grace.

My little bubby-girl born 31^st July 2008

Really, I have no words. She’s everything I dreamed she’d be. So small and fragile, but strong and brave (she rarely cries unless something is really wrong). She’s made my little family complete.

She doesn’t do much besides sleep and eat, but she has started watching her world. Her little eyes scanning over our faces, or caught by the dancing curtains from her change mat. She makes me so proud.

It’s hard to believe that I could love someone so much, and only have known them for two weeks. I don’t know her favourite colour, or what she likes most for breakfast, or who she thinks would win in a fight between Superman and a jedi. But it’s not hard to believe at all, when to look at her is to love her. Even when her face is all screwed up when she’s pooping.

She’s more than I could have hoped for, and she’s my daughter.

How frickin’ sweet.

P.S. Mil is a trooper. She is my hero.

But the iPhone isn’t perfectⁱⁱ. What follows is a list of a few things I would like to see for and on my iPhone. Before I start, can I just clarify so I don’t get interrupted in my flow: Anything I ask for I’d like as a native iPhone app, through the App Store— not some Jailbroken app that’s going to require me to tinker.

1. Cool new apps. I’m waiting on a native Remember the Milk app. It’s imminent. There are alternatives, but I’d love one that’s off-line and fully integrated. I love the idea that missing iPhone features are just a clever app away. Over time, my iPhone will just get more and more useful. They’re coming, and I can’t wait.
   Update: 2008-09-16 I caved and bought Todo by Appigo. RTM was taking to long, and would give no indication of timeframe, and I wasn’t using my iPhone properly without it! IceTV, Tumble, Showtimes, Passgen, LinkedIn, Instapaper, ReaddleDocs, Evernote, VoiceRecord and Zenbe are all fantastic apps that fill a bunch of holes for me too.
2. A way to switch off battery hogs quickly and painlessly. Currently there’s an easy “Airplane Mode” that switches off the phone, but I’d like a switch for 3G and Wifi too. Then if I’m struggling for juice I don’t have to crawl through three sub menus to switch them off. Maybe a third party can make this.
3. Better battery life. I’m not complaining with this one. I knew what I was getting into when I bought the thingⁱⁱⁱ. But by the time my battery dies, and I have to take it into the store to have it replaced, Apple better have a stronger, longer lasting battery to replace it with.
   Update: 2008-09-16 This is slightly improved with the 2.1 update.
4. Give me iTunes on Linux. I know Apple make their money on sales of OSX. But I also know they bowed to the awesome market of Windows users who needed iTunes on their Windows boxes— so it’s not impossible. I hear Steve Jobs now: “Call me when Ubuntu is as popular as Windows… Heck, call me if it’s ever as popular as OSX, we’ll do lunch.”
5. Let me synchronise my Google Calendar directly with the source, not through my desktop but wirelessly. And proper push email direct from my Gmail account. Seriously. Yahoo did it, how hard could it be? And while we’re wishing, direct contact synchronising. You get the idea— I hate having to sit down at my Mac desktop more than once a month this should all just happen without my involvement.
6. A way to connect to my work’s WiFi network. This isn’t really a problem with the iPhone, but an issue with my network. It’s all locked down and difficult to connect to at the best of times. Trying to connect my iPhone involved downloading the enterprise deployment tool and installing that on my workstation, then configuring it all as best I could and emailing the configuration to my iPhone. When it didn’t work: lather, rinse, repeat. I downloaded about ten different configurations, and I still don’t have it working. Again, this is not apple’s fault but this is my wishlist though, so I wish for an easier way to do this.
   Update: 2008-08-19 OK, got it connected. Turns out I was trying to connect with WPA, when I should have used WEP^iv. But my point still stands— this process could be made simpler.

   Further, every time my iPhone locks, it drops my connection and tells me I have entered an “incorrect wi-fi password”, even though it was just connected, and can connect again from the settings screen without trouble. This ModMyiFone forum thread suggests others are having the same trouble. Why?

7. A media centre app to rival the Apple TV, iTunes, iPhone Remote app combo. This sort of setup sounds pretty sweet. But I’m using Linux, and I’m not paying $500 (Australian) to buy a device who’s content is a handful of TV shows I can’t get for less than three dollars a pop. What would be nice is a polished app that runs twin tuners, a DVD player, plays my music, fetches my email and has a nifty iPhone application to do my bidding from the comfort of my couch. And runs on Linux. Of course there’s MythTV and Freevo, or even MediaPortal on Windows, but so far I don’t think there’s iPhone integration.
8. A Wordpress application that is as flexible and useful as the web-based admin panel. To create the magic of nunnone.com, I use a lot of useful plugins like Flickr Photo Gallery to pull in my Flickr photos and Zemanta for quick relevant photos, links and tags. I like to use the “code” view when I write to better wrangle my custom classes. The Wordpress app is terrific, but in translating to the iPhone, it’s small and light and almost useless to me. About all I can do with it is start a post and finish it off later when I’m at a proper computer. Since the app is open source it might eventually get some of this stuff, but so many webmasters use so many different plugins and tools, this would be very tricky to do. Still want it though.
9. Location-based reminders. I’m driving along, and I’m passing the library, and my phone says, “you have a library book to return”. Or I’m passing a shopping centre and I’m reminded that I need to pick up laundry detergent. This is not so impossible, but still some way off yet as the iPhone isn’t permanently pinging it’s location. Perhaps in future iterations, when battery life is better and people are less concerned about the privacy implications of having a device capable of sending data aware of your location at all times… Maybe this is something I don’t need.
10. My iPhone will make me more sexually attractive to the ladies. By now you’ve realised that I’m wishing beyond my iPhone’s reach here. So far, nothing I’ve asked for is beyond the realms of possibility, but some are so unlikely, and so like magic, that I might as well wish for the one thing that I really bought the iPhone for in the first place— sex appeal. Let’s face it, if a developer can make an app that can remind me to get milk as I pass the store or manage my entertainment centre from my couch, then why not magically make me even more awesome? An app that makes M&Ms and coke would be nice too.

11. Update: 2008-08-26 Extra peeve: leave my apps where they are when I update them!

    Update: 2008-09-16 I hear this is fixed in the 2.1 software update.

Bonus list— a few things my iPhone doesn’t need:

1. Cut and paste. I might eventually want this, but I haven’t needed it yet.
2. Flash. As above. I really haven’t noticed its absence.
3. Background apps. I love the idea of a computer in my pocket, but I’m happy to accept that the iPhone isn’t quite it. I can’t afford to sacrifice more battery power just to be in constant contact with my twitter friends. And the coming push service sounds like an acceptable compromise to me.
4. Turn by turn navigation. What? Who cares!?

What do you think? What are features you’re missing from your iPhone?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Divide and Conquer
• One GeekDad’s Review of iPhone 2.0
• Top 10 reasons to hate the iPhone 3G

The first is Peanut pushing on mummy’s cervix. Peanut is upside-down and cramped.

A little too anatomically correct in my opinion

The next is Peanut after coming out. See, there’s plenty of room.

Blue lines = free space (apparently)

Finally, Mil has a picture of herself holding Peanut. A promise of things to come, if you will.

Please come soon Peanut!

Isn’t she a brilliant artist?