Monday, June 28, 2004

From Apple Hot News Sneak Preview of Mac OS X Tiger. In a Tuesday morning keynote, Steve Jobs showed WWDC attendees key features of the forthcoming Mac OS X Tiger, which introduces Spotlight, a new way to find files and information; Safari RSS, a new version of the innovative web browser that provides instant access to RSS news feeds; Dashboard, a dazzling new way to get in and out of new all-purpose "widgets" quickly; and iChat AV multi-way video and audio conferencing in a stunning 3D interface. [Jun 28] [Apple Hot News] 8:05:59 PM

GaudÌ and Art Nouveau in Catalonia All Gaudí, All the Time. Gaudí and Art Nouveau in Catalonia: a comprehensive guide to the Modernisme art movement. [Eye of the Goof] 7:11:13 PM

Demo Here's a really cool demo of their RSS reader. Based on squinting at this demo, it appears they did it right. It's not three-pane, it's one panel, with the items displayed, from all your feeds, in reverse chronologic order. This is the most efficient way to read for the user. A lot of designers think RSS readers should work just like mail apps, but that's too inefficient. With mail you need to keep spam and mail list content segregated. For news, you need a different interface. I've been saying it for years, the Apple designers apparently didn't get sucked into the design mistake so many have. One thing I wish Apple had done differently is respect the white-on-orange icon. Such a small thing, but so important. One would think Apple, of all, would understand the value of consistent user interface. [Scripting News] 7:09:05 PM

Apple's Operating System Apple's Next Operating System. There will be a lot to like about Apple's next operating system, OS X 10.4, aka "Tiger", when it comes out sometime next year. In his keynote today at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Steve Jobs said Apple will be moving the bar further ahead of Microsoft. The only hardware announcement was several new displays -- as usual, great industrial design at reasonably affordable prices. I'm very tempted by the new 20-inch model that will be on sale next month. But this gathering is for software developers, and the bulk of the talk was about the operating system. There's plenty of interesting stuff here. The best feature for average users will be the built-in search, something MIcrosoft is also working to improve in its next OS, called Longhorn. Assuming it works as advertised, what Apple calls "Spotlight" make much shorter work of a common woe for computer users: finding what's on our hard disk. The ability to hold video conferences with up to four people at once, and audio with up to 10, is another nice upcoming feature. The multimedia folks at Apple have been busy. Jobs spent a fair amount of time talking about the native inclusion of RSS into an upcoming version of the Safari browers, and a "personal clipping" service. There's a special search function just for RSS; I'm not clear on whether it's searching via one of the main RSS search engines, whether Apple will write its own or whether it's only searching your designated feeds. More on that later. I was dazzled by a real advance in scripting: Automator, an application that will make it much easier for regular folks to wire together various functions from various appliations. Great stuff. There's lots more, of course, but the main thing to remember is that this product could be as much as a year (or more) away. Apple's announcements today, so far ahead of the actual release of the software, are designed to get the software developers excited enough to build of these features natively in their own applications. I hope they do. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 7:06:00 PM

Bob Baker and Artist Empowerment Bob Baker launches Online Radio Station. Aspiring musicians can now access free spoken word marketing tips via the new "Artist Empowerment" radio show. Host Bob Baker says the new one-hour show, which is continuously streamed over the Internet around the clock, was created to inspire musicians... [spinme.com] 7:37:24 AM

Chooch Train, train. [101-365] 7:34:06 AM