geek, and a bunlet.

As many of you would have noticed by now, I’ve been an avid user of iWork 09, specifically Keynote. And each Apple event gets my hopes up on a new version of iWork I can use to impress audiences.

Now of course a disclaimer. You CAN make terrible presentations with Keynote and great presentations with Powerpoint. Trust me, I’ve done both and everything in between. But Keynote is a real winner here: it’s one of the major reasons why I got a Macbook Pro in the first place.

Now, Steve Jobs always has his hands on the latest internal builds of Keynote and uses them at Apple events like WWDC and Macworld, showing off a couple of new features. I want to talk a bit about the keynote at the latest Apple special event.

At the very beginning of the keynote, he shows off this new build effect of dust particles flying as the object lands. Cool, but I was looking forward to more. Throughout the rest of the presentation, Steve uses this effect quite a few times.

And the limelight of the iWork went to the iPad. Apparently, the iWork team has been hard at work on porting the suite to the iPad, and not really updating it for Macs. A tad disappointing, seeing as I don’t have much interest in the iPad.

And that was it. Just one new effect.

As a semi-pro user of Keynote, what I would really want to see in a new version of Keynote are:

1. Custom animation sequences

In the keynotes, Apple has been using really cool animations that I’m certain are not in the current public builds of Keynote, such as the clock wipe etc. I’ve looked around, and it seems that they are built in Motion, Shake or some other app. It would be sweet to see this kind capability built into Keynote itself.

2. Layers

I know that Keynote is not a graphic application like Photoshop, but building impressive presentations these days often requires a lot of hard work and adding graphics and making sure the builds and actions look right.

And what better way to do grouping of objects than layers? Instead of manipulating objects grouped together (which is unwieldy), Keynote can allow users to specify the layers they want to place objects on, making for much easier operations on multiple objects.

3. Better slide master usability

One of the reasons I complain about the amount of graphic elements on slides is because I don’t place them on slide masters. For some reason I cannot remember, I’ve never liked the slide masters system on Keynote whereas I used them frequently in Powerpoint while I still used Windows mainly.

I don’t consider myself software illiterate or aversive to learning new software, in fact far from it. But there was this certain unintuitive feel about slide masters on Keynote. I’ll post again about this when I figure out what.

And that’s about it. Kind of sleepy now, so I guess I should stop before I post some gibberish here. In one of my next posts, I will try to post some of my slide designs to show the increasing intricacy of my slides.

For now, let’s just say iWork 2010 seems unlikely, or at best slated for late 2010 where it would be called iWork 2011 anyway. I’m just another disappointed fanboy for now.

Once again, another compulsory post on DI!

This time, the topic is on using sketches to show concepts.

Okay, end of post. That’s because I don’t sketch.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the concept behind sketching. So this post should be called The Concept of Using Sketches to Show Concept.

Let me just bring up a couple of graphics I used for Advertising Management pitch few days ago.

Aside from the last two slides I included to show I’m not all suck at design, you can see the other slides included some simple work in Illustrator. All they serve to do is convey a simple idea using simple visuals.

And this is exactly the point of sketching, only in a digital format. To convey a simple message without needing to spend excessive effort on drawing out the details and making it look nice.

For me, I’m much more comfortable with digital tools compared to picking up a pencil and sketchbook, but of course I do try to work on the areas I’m weaker in.

This reminds me of something else, which caters to my software crowd.

These are SketchFlow, of Microsoft’s Expression Studio 3 and Balsamiq’s Mockups respectively. Now, these are prototyping apps designed to let teams present concepts to each other and of course clients.

What is deliberate is their usage of the sketchy look. This helps people to focus on the idea, logic or concept rather than the aesthetics and creative execution. Somehow, by using generic look and feels, people can understand things better. Maybe it works for them, but I’m okay with anything. Still, these are useful apps.

Now, back to sketching. Sketching is simply a form of communication; it simplifies and presents a minimalistic idea, free of distraction-prone elements. There is no need to spend lots of time tweaking the details and visual aesthetics, which is an advantage.

It also presents another advantage: stripped of all the eye candy and glitz, the ideas are left to stand bare for all the world to see and scrutinize. And in that light, only truly solid and ingenuous ideas can stand, leading to only the best ideas being executed.

So, at the end of the day, sketching is but one of the ways to show something. In this digital age, I would expect more of the same idea, but expressed through software like Fireworks, Illustrator, SketchFlow, Mockups etc.

Here’s to the future!

This is um… effective copywriting for images. Heh.

Alright, alright, to appease the conservative and innocent minds, the other find of the day.

Stole the above pic from Maximum PC, because there’s probably already a gazillion pictures of browser icon mash-ups and I’m too lazy to make another and clutter the internets with more repetitive crap. No idea about the random machine thing in the middle.

Anyway. A browser is something that many of us use extensively on a day-to-day basis. The new Chrome OS is basically just a Browser Plus Some Hardware Support. And even now where it is common for people to install multiple browsers (the average user 2 or 3, and of course web developers definitely that and more), most people have a favourite.

When we choose a browser, what are the things we look out for? Typically speed, stability, extensions etc etc. However, there is always this browser that you feel most at home with and use as your main browser.

Myself, I choose Firefox. I’m not exactly in love with it though.

Chrome wins on speed. Firefox wins on extensions. Safari is nowhere. Opera is the most-loved for its interface design. IE is nowhere on the Mac and untouched on Windows.

I love Opera. Somehow it just gets me. In terms of interface, options available, the things on its default right-click menu etc. It has everything I need and want. It’s almost like we think together as one and organize things the same way. Even if it’s not exactly the way I like it, it’s 90% there and a simple tweak solves it. And the Speed Dial, which shows a grid of websites for quick jumping into browsing. The only flaws I find with it are speed and rendering. Speed, because Chrome is so much better and rendering because you can’t test your web development on it easily because Opera has miserable market share and other browsers don’t render some elements the same way (some pixel offs and stuff).

Chrome and Safari suck. There are many useful options lacking in their right-click menu, which I really love and use in Opera and Firefox. Also, their version of the Speed Dial is crap. There is no way to organize them the way I like it, basing the sites displayed on the most visited sites. OCD me really cannot stand not being able to organize and configure these sites to my liking. To worsen things, Chrome can’t load the homepage into every new tab I open. I like Google as my homepage, instead it gives me a blank page. For the love of God, give people OPTIONS.

And so I’m left with Firefox. Not the fastest thing around, but the menus are acceptable, interface is logical and flows. Opening homepage in new tab is fixed by a simple no-frills extension. Web development and testing is easy on Firefox because it’s the de facto browser alternative. Good enough for me, and slightly faster than Opera and has a good extension set (understatement).

As for the Speed Dial thing, I decided to just build my own and inject my own personality thereafter as the extensions in Firefox just don’t fit my needs either. After some coding here and there in HTML, I got something decently pleasant for myself.

It’s a work in progress people. It works. It looks nicer than the pre-built extensions I’ve seen. So there. Still need work on the fonts, and maybe some personal photos or something.

I’m just waiting for the day Opera’s speed catches up with Chrome. Godsend.

On the train now, looking at this Crispy Chocolates mini-billboard on the MRT. Having gone through my Advertising Management and Design & Illustration material in the past few days, I must certainly say the marketing guys have absolutely no clue to what they’re doing.

First look at the billboard:
- Colorful illustrations
- Dino mascot

Very obviously, a kids product. At this point, I would even say that they know their target audience, having designed the ad with children in mind, sporting cartoony and colorful elements to grab attention.

But on deconstructing the ad further, it became pure WTF. Here’s the part that made no sense at all.

- Hui Xian, 2nd runner-up to Campus Superstar 2, as product ambassador
- Dino mascot is a T-Rex
- Captions/taglines: “Love at first bite”, “What comes first, dinosaur or the egg?”
- The brand itself is called “Crispy Chocolates”

Who the hell cares about the 2nd runner-up?! Yes, it may sound mean and cruel but the harsh reality is that nobody remembers the 2nd runner-up, especially not from Campus Superstar. Also, “who the hell cares” also refers to their target audience. I can see two groups of typical TAs for this product, kids aged 3-10 and their parents. In either case, how does a Campus Superstar contestant appeal or relate to either of them?!

The next gripe is about their mascot. Yes, it’s cute and cartoony. But why a T-Rex? Which part of their brand or product is related to any attributes of the T-Rex? Why not a bear, or a rabbit, or whatever? They are having a mascot for the sake of having one, adding absolutely no value to their brand. Even the mascot has the artist’s sign-off on it. It’s budget, to say the least.

Again, the taglines. Totally placeholder/fillers. Yes, they have this coin box thing with the dino in the egg but what’s the freaking link?! “Love at first bite” is mildly acceptable though.

Lastly, what kind of product is “Crispy Chocolates”?! It’s not catchy, crispiness isn’t promoted as a core product benefit, it’s not even an original word/name!

Shame on the marketing department. Based on such an impression, I’m not even sure if they do media monitoring for their own product. But if they do and they’re reading this, I hope to send out the message that you guys seriously need to do something about yourselves.

How can it be that students taking a diploma course are expected to produce work of high quality when the industry itself is so fail?

[I didn’t manage to take a picture but head over to their site. It’s kind of better.]

It’s 2.35am.

I did a ton of non-school-related stuff, all of which fall under admin/cleaning up. Does that translate to productivity?

Also, my internet is down. It is a blessing to have this HSDPA internet up while my main internet is down. Sure, it is common sense for the operator to do maintenance between the “non-peak hours” of “2am-8am”.

But you know, if you’re like me and work pretty much at night, no such luck. I guess it’s the price of being different. Like getting that huge 17” Macbook Pro and finding that accessories don’t come in that size.

Anyway. I’m going to try for another burst of report-writing now.

If you haven’t realized by now, this blog serves two primary audiences:

1. The software/coding crowd

2. The design/art crowd

So here are two sites that I recommend for each respectively. If you’re into the scene then chances are you’ve already heard of them, but if you haven’t, you don’t know what you’re missing out on!

For the geeks:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/

For the creatives:

http://www.andyrutledge.com/

Both sites are extremely insightful collections of articles that will benefit you if you are into either coding or design.

Have a good read!

And… Joel on Software had a pleasant surprise for me:

A soft fluffy bunlet! ♥

After another night of finishing work up, I’ve decided to work on one of the modules I’ve been neglecting for quite a while. This time, I decided to do something about my sketchbook. You can see the results below:

I have to say again, I hardly draw and have minimal prior experience with it. I guess it really comes with practice. Mum told me shading should be done with thicker pencils, like the 6B so I tried it.

Another random sketch:

Random “Table”.

To me, there was the initial inertia against picking up the sketchbook for some reason. Possibly the same driving force as procrastination. But it seems addictive after you overcome that first feeling… You gain momentum and you draw more and more.

Perhaps this is a particularly good day for the arts. We’ll see.

[I’ll be back with more design-related posts soon. Deadline’s approaching!]

Apple first, because I actually like to think you guys care about the end-user at all. I WANT to like your products, so these are my gripes.

iPhoto is broken for me. Your checkbox to not save photos in your library is not working at all. The average user doesn’t care and lets iPhoto eat up disk space for no good reason. The slightly clever user unchecks the checkbox and feels happy, not knowing how this function is BROKEN. Please stop lying to us users. If there’s no way to do this properly (which I doubt) you might as well not have the checkbox. Come on, this preference works properly in iTunes!

Also, your multimonitor support is next to non-existent. Do any of you guys at Apple actually use your shiny, expensive 30” Cinema Displays as extended workspace?! Well the menu bar is non-existent on the second monitor and it’s simply unusable in many cases. I know of apps like DejaMenu and SecondBar, but come on! This is stuff that should be in the OS itself!

And lastly, Cut still doesn’t work in Finder. Screw your drag-and-drop, some of us just prefer to use your perfectly designed chiclet and wireless keyboards.

Microsoft now. I use Word frequently on my Mac and the level of performance on this thing is intolerable. In short, laggy crapware! Yes, I do have many alternatives including Pages from Apple but I prefer using MS Word for, you know, compatibility. Will you guys update the app so it doesn’t run on Carbon or Rosetta or whatever old technology you are running, because it’s slow as heck. And your formatting plates don’t work with Spaces, I don’t care if it’s Apple’s fault, you fix it. And while you’re at it, I want my VBA on Mac and a freaking equation editor that works.

Or you guys should just forget the Mac market and do your Windows thing which you do oh-so-well.

I’d always thought to try out Pages and Numbers since I’d been so happy with Keynote, but never found the time to because you know, how different are word processors? Being the busy person that I am, I might as well use your MS Word because I already know how to.

I think I’ll give Pages and Numbers a try in the coming days, just to spite Microsoft that your Word for Mac sucks in performance, your Excel is near-unusable and Powerpoint, well, has its use for shape creation but Keynote beats hands down for everything else.

I hate it when I want to love these things but I simply can’t.