Category: Design

Articles and bookmarks related to design

Categories
'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Computere og Internet Design Hackers Historier/Stories Macintosh Mactopia Technology Udfordring

Tillykke med de 30 år Windows, du er ikke en pebersvend/mø

Kære Windows,

Tillykke med de 30 år, du er ikke en pebersvend/mø, dertil har du for mange faste forhold.

Selv har jeg anvendt Windows siden 1986 og udviklet programmer til Windows siden 1987, så jeg har været med næsten fra starten.

My first copy of Windows 1.01

Historien om hvordan jeg blev Windows udvikler startede da jeg i 1986 lånte en Mac Plus, det var en fantastisk computer, og den viste mig fremtiden for brugergrænseflader, der indtil da var meget forskellig fra program til program, i VisiCalc skulle man anvende / for at tilgå en menu, i Lotus 1-2-3 var det F10, og moden skiftede hele tiden.

Min far arbejdede i LK, en producent af elektrisk udstyr, og han og jeg så en mulighed for at digitalisere forkalkulationen af elektriske fordelingsanlæg, også kendt som el-tavler, således at man udfra en forsidetegning kunne danne en stykliste og sende den direkte til LK.

Vi lavede et hurtigt mock-up.

LKad mock-up

Desværre lå landet sådan at ingen af mine kunder have Mac computere, så jeg gik i gang med en analyse af markedet for standard pc-programmel, hvor jeg havde kig på AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT og GEM Draw.

Problemet med disse programmer var at de ville kræve indkøb af licenser hvis man ville give programmerne gratis væk, og i øvrigt var det svært at lave integration med standardprogrammerne.

I de dage var det kotume at skrive alting selv, men allerede på det tidspunkt var der så mange forskellige eksterne enheder i form af mus, printere og grafikkort, at det var en uoverkommelig opgave, så nu koncentrerede jeg mig om standard grafiske brugerflader, specielt GEM og Windows.

Valget faldt på Windows, mest fordi det allerede var anbefalet som en genvej til det kommende OS/2.

Why I recommended developing for Windows

Jeg udarbejdede et tilbud og en analyse under navnet LKad:

Cover of LKad proposal

Jeg opstillede et budget.

LKad budget

Kunden accepterede og min virksomhed SmoothWare havde fået sin første ordre på kr. 80.000, en veritabel formue for en studerende i 1987.

Udvikling til Windows var svært det var en ganske anden arkitektur end man kendte fra MS/PC-DOS, og dengang var der ikke Google, udviklingsværktøjerne var rasende dyre og symbolsk debugging med det allerede dengang fremragende CodeView var egentlig kun mulig hvis man havde to computere, noget ingen havde dengang hvor den billigste computer kostede ca. 30.000.

Efter en hård kamp lykkedes det at levere et færdigt produkt med navnet LKTegn.

Actual LKTegn drawing

Actual LKTegn parts list

Det næste store problem var at Windows ikke var særlig udbredt, en licens kostede ca. 1.200 kr, og da der ikke fandtes ret mange programmer til Windows, var der intet marked.

Microsoft havde dog åbnet muligheden for at man kunne redistribuere Windows med sit program, under den forudsætning at der kun kunne køres et program af gangen.

I 1987 havde Microsoft ingen repræsentation i Danmark, så jeg måtte kontakte Microsoft Sverige, der undrende spurgte hvad jeg dog skulle bruge det til???

Nå jeg modtog ca. 50 siders jura, og fik min redistributions licens.

Herefter skulle programmet rulles ud til samtlige el-installatører i Danmark, det foregik på den måde at de fik et besøg af produktchefen, som var min far hvor han installerede LKTegn, sørgede for at det virkede og gav lidt undervisning.

LKTegn installation disks, including Windows 1.04 redistributables

Jeg arbejdede med videreudvikling af LKTegn frem til 2005, under navne som Swift og DACS, hvor jeg slap tøjlerne.

Jeg vil tro at mit arbejde som Windows udvikler har skaffet mig indtægter på mindst 10 millioner og Microsoft ca. det 10-dobbelte i licenser, økonomi er noget underligt noget.

Tak til Microsoft for med Windows at have skabt et kolossalt økosystem der ikke var bundet til bestemt hardware.

I dag er Windows under det største pres siden lanceringen af Windows 3.0, det bliver spændende om det overhovedet giver mening at tale om et traditionelt (desktop)operativsystem i fremtiden, det vil blive leveret over Internettet, mon Windows vil være her om 30 år? Næppe som vi kender det, men mon ikke LKTegn vil kunne afvikles alligevel i en eller anden virtuel maskine.

Categories
Blogs Computere og Internet Design Education/Undervisning Historier/Stories Kim Blog (English) NGOs Open Source Resources Rumforskning Technology Udfordring Undervisning Videnskab

I’m getting “Lunatics”

I’m pro nuclear power under the following condition:

Nuclear power should be ear-marked to produce batteries, solar arrays and wind turbines that can render us independent of non-renewable energy.

As soon as renewable energy usage has reached critical mass, and this will happen way before we have a 100% coverage, nuclear power is to be phased out.

Public funding for research in new ideas that has no prospect of materialising any time soon, and are pipe/wet dreams of the physicists and so called visionaries, like controlled fusion, are to be stopped IMMEDIATELY!

So what about the nuclear waste?

Like it was investigated in the TV-series Space:1999, we could store the spent fuel on the Moon.

And another idea I came up with yesterday, that turns my original idea on it’s head, is to make nuclear fusion power plants, using something like the Orion-pulse nuclear engine, to ignite fusion, and to build that plant on the Moon.

The plant would produce and charge batteries, build solar arrays and wind turbines that are produced on the Moon using the huge amounts of energy, and the produced batteries, solar arrays and wind turbines can, basically for free, hitch a ride to Earth utilising only gravity and parachutes for soft landing.

Don’t we need a Moonbase then?”

The argument is something like “It will be labour intense, and it will be a problem that we don’t have a Moonbase in place that can provide accomodation for the myriads of “lunauts” required to build this capability?

I’d argue that it wont be needed, since self-replicating robots can mine raw materials, produce all the goods, construct, build and operate the plant(s).

Science-fiction?

NO! I don’t think so.

I think it’s less science-fiction than controlled fusion, and that it can be achieved using heavy-lift technologies, that were developed in the 1960ies, combined with modern robotics!

I’m getting “Lunatics”.

Categories
'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Bookmarks Caféer og Restauranter Computere og Internet Computerspil Design Education/Undervisning Frivillig arbejde Hackers Historier/Stories Humor Kim Blog (English) Kunst Lektiehjælpen (Danish) Macintosh Mactopia Manic Panic Music NGOs Open Source Photography Resources Rumforskning Technology Udfordring Undervisning Videnskab WordPress

New high-score

New high score

As far as I can see, this was my 40K, and I average just a little more than 19 Tweets/day.

The Full Monty


ps. Just for the record, I have wasted FAR more than 333 hours on Twitter on my 10 accounts.

Categories
Blogs Computere og Internet Design Education/Undervisning Historier/Stories Kim Blog (English) Kunst Resources Technology

Fun with “Storify” – from micro-blog to macro-blog

As you might have noticed, I’ve recently begun using “Storify”, and I like it a lot.

From the About page on Storify.com

Storify helps making sense of what people post on social media. Our users curate the most important voices and turn them into stories

This is my “Storify”-profile

A common use case would be to “Storify” all tweets tagged with a specific tag, or all tweets from a given user, creating a macro blogentry out of micro blogentires in a blink of an eye.

I’d like to describe another use case, which is how to enhance an article, by extending it using” Storify”.

This week VisitCopenhagen published a nice article about the famous philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s Copenhagen, it was great, but as always, they only link to articles within their own portal, I felt that “something” was missing”.

This is the article on Søren Kierkegaard that VisitCopehagen has on their website. I’d like to “Storify” it by adding more “stories”, or what I’d like to call that micro-blog entries, to the article.

Søren Kierkegaard Storify
Søren Kierkegaard Storify
The first such microblog entry I wanted to add was the Wikipedia entry for Søren Kierkegaard.

I used “Storify” for iPad, which is great, so I just selected the Globe icon and entered the URL for the Wikipedia article, now I could add the article.

Here’s a screenshot after I’ve added links to both the VisitCopenhagen and Wikipedia articles
VisitCopenhagen plus Wikipedia

I added links to Foursquare too, as well as my own comments.

I think this resulted in a nice macro-blog article, that adds significant value to the article from VisitCopenhagen, but I’d let you be the judge on that.

For convenience nothing really beats “Storify”, my main concern is that you buy into their file-format.

You can choose to save your story to your blog though, and it looks like Storify exports everything to HTML.

This was just one example of a workflow that enhances articles written by others, another example is knowledge sharing, a good example of that would be my article on #postPC, my experiences trying to replace my laptop with an iPad and a mobile.

Wishlist and a warning

The only thing I really miss with “Storify”, is the ability to collaborate on stories online, and I discovered a major problem with this. Since “Storify” doesn’t really support collaboration, I experienced that I, after finishing editing a story on my Mac lost that version because I had the story open on the iPad too, so auto-save replaced my final copy.

Best practice is not to leave a story open in the iPad editor, by always selecting “My Stories” before editing on another computer.

“Storify” is fun and makes it easier to create blog-posts, which is good, I’m not sure if the readers agree 4.5/5 stars!

Categories
'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Design Education/Undervisning Hackers Historier/Stories Kunst Photography Resources Technology Undervisning WordPress

website til min nieces kunst-portfolio

Categories
Blogs Computere og Internet Design Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English)

Amazon Kindle – Vision og forretning

Who's afraid of Virginia WoolfHvad er en Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle er en kompakt enhed der minder om en computer, men er beregnet til at vise tekst, f.eks. digitale bøger – eBøger/eBooks, på en skærm der bruger en teknologi der hedder eInk. Denne teknologi adskiller sig fra traditionelle computerskærme, ved at den danner billedet med magnetisk blæk, og at skærmen virker med reflekteret lys, som papir, oplevelsen minder derfor meget om papir, og i øvrigt gør det at enheden bruger meget mindre strøm, da det kun er når billedet dannes på skærmen at der bruges strøm, den relativt langsomme opdateringshastighed skærmen arbejder med, gør at man ikke kan vise ting som video.

Kindle har en 6″ skærm med en opløsning på 800×600 punkter, dette giver en meget tydeligt skærm, som skal ses før man tror det. Teknikken gør dog at skærmen ikke kan vise farver, men det er noget der bliver arbejdet på det, og netop i dag afholdes der en konference i Frankrig, hvor der efter sigende er rigtig mange brugere af de nye eBogs læsere.

I denne artikel, som nok bliver en artikelserie, vil jeg fokusere mere på visionen bag, så der er ikke rigtig tale om en anmeldelse, og alle de steder der står Amazon Kindle, kunne der lige så godt stå noget andet, f.eks. “Tölva” – som en fremtidig enhed kunne hedde – “tilfældigvis” er det netop det jeg har kaldt min Kindle 😉

Hvorfor!
Så hvorfor købte jeg en Kindle? Først og fremmest så var jeg så heldig at få en i hænderne til reboot11, og jeg ønskede mig straks en, så da Amazon annoncerede at Kindle ville bliver lanceret internationalt, trak jeg straks et nummer. Den officielle lanceringsdato var den 18-oktober, den blev sendt den 19-oktober og jeg havde den den 22-oktober, hvilket inkluderede en nat på DHLs lager – den moderne internationale handels evner til levere imponerer mig altid.

Visionen
Den virkelige grund til at jeg anskaffede en Kindle, var nu også at jeg længe har haft et erklæret ønske om at læse noget mere, og her synes jeg Kindle giver os et glimt af fremtiden. Bøger og aviser er utroligt “upraktiske”, jeg glemmer dem, synes de er uhandy og tunge, og dette gælder også paperbacks – jeg føler at det er en af grundende til at jeg ikke læser så meget som jeg selv ønsker. Nå ja, jeg er jo glad for dimser, og da Nikolaj Sonne fra “So Ein Ding” så min Kindle til Copenhagen Cocoa Development Camp et par dage efter jeg havde fået den, stoppede han helt op midt i sin “procedure”, jeg havde en Kindle før Mr. Ding himself.

Når jeg ser en Kindle tænker jeg i øvrigt iPod anno 2001. Kindle er ikke rigtig en dims (gadget – savner dansk ord), det er en platform. Som iTunes og iPod, udnytter Kindle en eksisterende infrastruktur, nemlig Amazons, og husk at iTunes Music Store ikke var i nærheden af at være klar da iPod blev introduceret, Amazon er klar, og har allerede 360,000 titler tilgængelige, og Amazons vision er rent faktisk at samtlige (skrevne) værker der er udgivet i menneskehedens historie, skal være tilgængelige på Kindle. Jeg synes dette er en smuk vision, som det undrer mig at man skal høre fra en privat, kommerciel virksomhed fra USA.

Unboxing
Det første jeg bemærkede, da jeg pakkede min Kindle ud, var at den viste nogle instruktioner på skærmen, jeg prøvede at fjerne den plastik jeg antog var placeret på skærmen, sådan plejer det jo at være, ude af stand til at finde plastikkens kanter, gik det op for mig at Kindle viste et billede på skærmen! eInk skærme er virkelig anderledes, sammenlignet med traditionelle computerskærme – når skærmbilledet først er dannet har det ikke brug for strøm, så selv om enheden var slukket viste den et billede.

Whispernet, trådløs adgang der bare virker!
Jeg var godt klar over at Kindle var en opkoblet dims (wireless device), så jeg var meget overrasket da jeg ikke var i stand til at finde en eneste reference til opsætning, det værende sig SIM-kort, WiFi eller lignende, i den korte dokumentation der følger med – underligt – hvordan kommer den så på nettet?

Så jeg var yderst overrasket da jeg, efter at have været en tur forbi MyKindle websitet på min computer for at ændre navnet og e-mail adressen for min Kindle, og efter en kort lur, opdagede at Kindle havde opdateret sig selv, og at der nu stod “Tölva” i stedet for “Kim Bach’s Kindle” på skærmen.

At se en opkoblet dims der bare virker så snart man har pakket den ud, burde ikke føles som en fantastisk ting, det er sådan teknologi burde virke, men vi er anderledes vant – knockout sejr til Kindle her!

24-November-2009 sendte Amazon i øvrigt en opdatering til version 2.3 af Kindle softwaren, og den virkede perfekt, og blev sendt automatisk – endnu et eksempel på hvordan teknologi burde virke – ingen iTunes og computer nødvendig – tak og lov!

Jeg er dybt imponeret over den aftale Amazon har fået med AT&T, der er nemlig tale om intet mindre end en gratis, global, mobil data-roaming aftale.

Passioneret fællesskab
Naturligvis skrev jeg om Kindle på twitter, og der gik ikke lang tid før jeg fik et svar. Det kom fordi jeg undrede mig over hvor jeg ville finde åbent og frit indhold – det andre kalder gratis – altså bøger der allerede findes på Internettet – f.eks. gennem Gutenberg projektet.

Disse bøger findes som regel i nogle standard formater der hedder .mobi, og dem kan Kindle læse direkte.

Svaret jeg fik på twitter, og jeg havde ikke formuleret et spørgsmål, bare luftet en undren, var at jeg skulle få fat i softwaren calibre. calibre og det er et must hvis du har en eBogs læser. Der er tale om et open source program som fungerer lidt som iTunes til eBogs læsere, det kan konvertere mellem mange formater, og sidst men ikke mindst, importere RSS feeds og overføre dem til Kindle og andre eBogs læsere.

Der er iøvrigt flere muligheder for at overføre data til Kindle, man kan enten gøre det via. Whispernet (e-mail), men det koster så $1/megabyte, så det er bedre at bruge det medfølgende USB kabel, som er standard mikro-USB.

PDF – ikke en eBogs standard
Mange er nysgerrige for at høre om Kindle understøtter PDF. Det korte svar er ja, det lange er noget mere kompliceret. De fleste PDFer er sat op til at blive udskrevet på A4 papir, og det passer ikke ret godt til Kindles 6″ skærm. Et af problemerne er at PDF er mange ting, skannede sider f.eks.

Dette skuffer sikkert mange, men problemet er altså PDF, ikke Kindle, man er simpelthen nød til at omformatere sin tekst så den understøtter variable “papir” størrelser, og der bliver nødvendigt at “teste” sine udgivelser på mange enheder.

En lidt sjov ting jeg har brugt PDF visning på Kindle til, er at jeg har lagt billetter på den, og brugte min Kindle som billet to gange under CPH:DOX – desværre havde de ikke stregkode skannere til nogle af arrangementerne, men jeg synes det ser sandsynligt ud at det ville fungere.

Amazon Kindle Store – impulskøbsalarm
Amazon Kindle Store virker som det skal, gå til forretningen, søg efter den titel du er intereseret i – her er det smart at Kindle har et tastatur, køb og titlen er klar på din startside i løbet af 30 sekunder – imponerende. Kindle bruger din Amazon konto, så hvis du har one-click slået til, så er din Kindle, effektivt, et kreditkort. Samtlige bøger kan i øvrigt hentes i en prøveudgave med adgang til udvalgt indhold, så man kan se om det er den rigtige titel, dette fungerer virkelig godt, men det er lidt for let bagefter at komme til at trykke køb, da det er standardknappen – derfor har jeg nu en kopi af “Pigen der legede med ilden” på engelsk. Det skal dog tilføjes at man straks får muligheden for at fortryde sit køb.

Der er også mulighed for at abonnere på en lang række aviser og tidsskrifter, jeg valgte straks International Herald Tribune og Asimovs Science Fiction. Det smarte, og farlige, ved aviser og tidsskrifter er at man får den 14-dage gratis.

Kindle som browser
Selv om Kindle umiddelbart er en “iPod for bøger”, altså har sin egen hukommelse hvor indkøbte bøger bliver downloadet til, så er Kindle også en computer der kører en speciel version af Linux. Der er også indbygget en browser, som tilgås gennem Kindles menupunkt “Experimental features” – her finder man “Basic Web”, og her får man adgang til en webbrowser, der, i den internationale version, ser ud til kun at give adgang til Wikipedia, men det er da heller ikke så tosset, gratis adgang til Wikipedia uanset hvor man er i verden.

Jeg har testet hvordan sider med f.eks. matematiske formler viser, og det ser virkelig godt ud.

Kindle er bestemt ikke verdens hurtigste browser, men det virker, og er gratis.

One Kindle Per Student (and Teacher)
En vision jeg får når jeg ser en dims som Kindle er at en dims som denne burde være tilgængelig for hvert eneste barn, eller rettere hver eneste “studerende” og lærere, og hvorfor nu det?

Kindle er enkel, virker robust, og kan allerede i dag, indeholde en kopi af alle de skolebøger man har brugt i hele sit aktive studieliv, det er lige fra Folkeskole til Universitetet.

Kindle eller Dynabook?Jeg synes at Kindle ser meget bekendt ud, og den minder mig om Alan Kays vision – Dynabook – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. “A Personal Computer For Children Of All Ages.”

Hvis samtlige børn (“studerende”) havde en platform som Kindle, ville det også skabe et nyt marked for skolebøger, hvilket burde være med til at forbedre kvaliteten – hvis man ellers tror på markedsøkonomi.

I dag bliver innovationen indenfor uddannelse bremset af ophavsretsloven, det er, f.eks., meget svært at hjælpe børn med ting som matematikopgaver over Internettet, fordi det ikke er muligt at dele skolebøgerne online, eller som downloads til en eBogs læser.

Lærer er i øvrigt i den brede definition, fordi vi alle vil blive, potientielle, lærere hvis denne teknologi blev gjort tilgængeligt for alle.

Rent faktisk er vi også alle studerende, nutidens samfund kræver af os at vi fortsætter med at uddanne os hele livet, er det ikke vidunderligt, og det er også sundt! Få din hjerne til at “pumpe jern”.

Hvor er verdens førende IT land?
HVORFOR kan jeg ikke få lov til at betale for min avis (og heller ikke BØLGEN ;-)) – der er nemlig ikke en eneste dansk avis der synes det var umagen værd at levere aviser gennem Amazon? Tilgengæld kan jeg, via. RSS og den uundværlige calibre software, hente Information, og det koster helt gratis.

At ingen danske forlag har fundet det nødvendigt at kunne distribuere via. Amazon var mere forventet.

Rygtet om litteraturens død er stærkt overdrevet
Kindle kombinerer vision og forretning, Amazon har leveret en dims der er så let at bruge som jeg mener det er muligt med nutidens teknologi, og der er en klar forretningsmodel. Amazon har en vinder her.

Hvordan går det så med at læse noget mere. Jeg er f.eks. nu halvvejs gennem min første bog, “The Raw Shark Texts”, som blev indkøbt til mig af min veninde @anetq fra den fine Undr! blog – tusinde tak for “gaven”.

Igen virkede twitter på mystisk vis. Da jeg roste bogen på twitter, og skrev forfatterens navn, gik der ikke mange minutter før jeg fik et “thanks” fra @steveha11 – forfatteren af the “Raw Shark Texts” – en bog jeg nyder meget. Det er fantastisk at forfatterne nu kun er et tweet væk. Så vidt jeg kan forstå, så arbejder Steve Hall på en filmatisering af “The Raw Shark Texts” – noget der ikke bliver helt let.

Jeg tror virkelig at Amazons vision kan få os til at læse mere, hvilket også vil få os til at skrive mere, så rygtet om litteraturens død (Information 2059: Amatørerne har gjort en ende på litteraturhistorien) er stærkt overdrevet. Hvordan det kommer til at gå med “bogen” – jeg tror personligt at bogen, som vi kender den, forsvinder, men at vores enheder vil blive så gode at vi slet ikke kan se forskel.

Her er et tip til hvordan Danmark kan blive nummer 1 på rigtig mange af de lister Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussen snakker om – sats på åben og fri digital distribution af alle skolebøger, og vi kan få en renaisance for læsningen og viden.

Bogen er død, længe leve bogen!

Tidligere dækning:

Eksterne henvisninger:

Her kan du hente gratis eBøger

  • epubBooks.com http://www.epubbooks.com/ – et bredt udvalg af eBøger i ePub formatet. Skal konverteres, f.eks. med calibre, før de virker på Kindle, noget calibre gør automatisk
  • Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page – her er der over 30.000 gratis eBøger
  • Planet eBook.com: Free eBooks – en række klassikere i PDF format

Litteraturliste:

Categories
Blogs Design Hackers IT Guruer Kim Blog (English) Resources Technology

sIFR inside: mourning the loss of a friend, with a tribute to Mark Wubben

Logo Sifr2Yesterday I had the, unexpected, pleasure of meeting Mark Wubben in person, and it was great.

The reason: yesterday we had a meeting in relation to a project, and webgrl extraordinarie, Henriette Weber asked if she could bring a guest. Sure! His name is Mark Wubben, do you knew who he is? No, not really!…Well it turned out that I did, he’s the man behind the incredible piece of code known as sIFR.

In case you don’t know what sIFR is – chances are that you don’t – it’s a method to display rich typography on the web, using Flash, but in a completely transparent, and accesible way.

So as a tribute to Mark and the fantastic work he’s done with SiFR, I’ve switched my sites theme to the sIFR experiment, I never got quite finished with last year – it’s based on the standard template.

I got to look at some of the work he’s done at his company, and it’s SUPER cool.

Mark is also finding time – which is amazing – to work on sIFR, and I got a sneak-view of version 3.0 of sIFR, and it’s going API, will be fully scalable etc.

The main reason I stopped my experimentation with sIFR, was because it didn’t support Danish characters, but Mark would LOVE to hear from you, so I’ll ask him for advice – really it’s “just” a matter of providing the correct Flash files. Another reason I stopped using sIFR, was that I didn’t have the energy to chase down nicer fonts, the defaults aren’t exactly the nicest.

Wondering what Mark is up to these days? You’ll better watch it!

If you’re using sIFR, do give Mark a shout, he’d appreciate it, and his work deserves ALL the recognition in the world!

ps. Incidentally I just lost a good friend, due to COMPLETE stupidity on my part, I guees that I’m an a**hole, and the irony is that, he was the one, who drew my attention to sIFR. So long buddy 🙁

Categories
Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Design Kim Blog (English) Resources Technology

iPhone Dev Center – Apple opens the iPhone and iPod touch for developers

Iphonedevcenter Loginbanner
iPhone Dev Center – Apple Developer Connection

Apple means business with their promise to open up the iPhone and iPod touch platform to developers with the launch of the iPhone Dev Center, and it looks quite impressive, even though it’s mainly information on how to develop web-applications, and links to already existing information for Mac OS X.

Below is a quote from the mail I just received from ADC:

Available to all ADC Members, the iPhone Dev Center is your complete source for technical information, resources, and expert advice on how to design, code and optimize web applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Take advantage of the iPhone Reference Library, web development guidelines, and sample code to build or optimize your web application. Through ADC on iTunes, you can watch iPhone experts discuss everything from user interface design to optimizing your web applications and content for iPhone.

Once your app is ready, or if you have an existing web app, submit it for possible listing on the Apple web apps page. Log in now and access all the resources of the iPhone Dev Center today.

Unfortunately I don’t think Apple is going to make the platform available to other hardware manufacturers, which is typical Apple, but wouldn’t it be great with Mono ported to the iPhone and iPod touch? And I’m confident that Mono and even Silverlight/Moonlight will be ported to the iPhone platform.

Another brilliant touch (pun intended ;-)), is that the developer resources only is available to registered ADC users, something that the open source communities would barf at, but Apple will get away with it, as usually, and I think that the open source communities should take lessons from Apple.

I think ADC will receive a huge influx of registered users because of this, and it’s a direct path to marketing of the WWDC, which will see an unprecedented surge in attendance next year, which I predict will force Apple into move towards two WWDCs every year, one for mobile and non-mobile devices.

This is yet another brilliant move by Apple – and is that a Steve Jobs version of “the monkey dance” I see on the horizon? Developers, Developers, Developers!

Categories
Blogs Bookmarks Design Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English) Kunst Music Photography Resources

Done “shopping” for events for the Copenhagen Kultur Natten 2007 – it WIIL be GREAT

Media(345,1030) Front Illu 2007Today October 12th-2007 is the day of the cultural event of the year in Copenhagen, “The Night of Culture” or Kulturnatten, and I’ve just finished “shopping” for events.

You can build a custom program on the web-site, unfortunately it doesn’t have a URL or a feed so that I can share it directly with you.

This year it seems like my theme will be Passion, Science and Christianity. Below is a list of events that I’ll try to mange to attend – it will be tough, and I’ll let the “Instincts be my shepherd” and stay for long in the places where I feel good vibes, and I’m very confident in my instincts.

It does look like my fix-points this year will be Kastellet, Botanisk Have, Humanistisk Fakultet, Glyptoteket and Marmorkirken. The previous years I had an extensive program as well, but I ended up spending hours at the Copenhagen HQ of The Danish Refugee Council, but since they’re not open this year, I might manage more.

Really there’s only ONE event I’m not going to miss, and that is Ars Nova singing English renaissance music in Marmorkirken – last year they were spectacular, and this year they’re issuing a new CD on the Kulturnat, I’ll be first in line to get a copy.

From the previous years I’ll HIGHLY recommend the Exhibition at Thorvaldsen’s Museum, the lights are turned off, and the statues are illuminated, it’s just fantastic, for me it’s been there done that this year however.

Rundetaarn is always too crowded, and the midnight concert this year is just too mainstream for my taste, but I loved it two years ago, and the storage room above the church is just wonderful.

So I wish you all a great Kulturnat, you just have to love Copenhagen for having the energy to set up such a massive event. And strange things happen on the Kulturnat, if you just let your senses guide you, and while you wait for my next blogpost, you can read about my experiences of the last two years here:

Events I hope to cover in 2007 – prioritised order – but my full intended program is 4 pages long:

Categories
Blogs Computere og Internet Design Education/Undervisning Hackers Kim Blog (English) Music Technology Undervisning Videnskab

Show your love for science – Science After Dark @ City Hall Square

Researchers Night LogoFriday I went to the Science Fair – dubbed Science After Dark – that was held at Copenhagen City Hall Square (Københavns Rådhusplads), and I enjoyed it very much. I didn’t really know what to expect, but when I read that there would be live electronic music, I knew that I was going.

The first thing i noticed was that attendance, despite the location, was disappointingly low. I feel that it was because the venue looked quite uninviting, due to the fence, and the rather closed looking pavilions.

I also got the feeling that the PR for the Science Fair had been less than satisfactory.

ConDio – Controlling Audio

ConDio - Controlling Audio at RådhuspladsenAnyway, the first thing that grasped my eye was the ConDio, Controlling Audio. The ConDio is a device with which you can control the playback of sound, simply by moving physical bricks around on a table surface. The ConDio uses pattern recognition to determine the position of the different blocks, which translates into a specific function, for instance one brick changes the track that is being played, others applies filters.

It’s remarkably simple, efficient and intuitive to control a computer in this fashion, and it was a real crowd puller.

The ConDio has been developed by the medialogy branch of the University of Aalborg, and It was really great talking to the students that were responsible for the project. They were really feeding from the enthusiasm of the people that were looking at it.

I’m really envious that the students of today get to play with technology like this, to quote Haladjjan, the founder of Violet (manufacturer of the Nabaztag intelligent WiFi bunny):

“le début de l’internet a été une aimable kermesse… Maintenant les choses sérieuses commencent” – (translation: “the beginning of the Internet has been a friendly festival…Now the serious stuff begins”.

What a great time in history to be alive in.

Kim Bach – The failed scientist

I also enjoyed visiting the Bio Chemistry tent, where I had a discussion about how to bring science to the public (“videnskabs formidling”). The scientist in charge asked me it I’ve heard about Jens Martin Knudsen – and the regular reader would know that I just posted a tribute to him – we need more like him – since he was able to bring across complicated matters in lay-mans terms – we also discussed the great Richard Dawkins.

What I really hope is that someone could take up the reins from Jens Martin Knudsen, because we need those positive role-models from the scientific community to teach us the importance of understanding our world.

I also had a chance to redeem myself. I label my self a “failed scientist”. I’m really a product of the inspiration of the space program and the lunar missions, and when I was a kid, I desperately wanted to become a scientist – but “something” happened along the way – and it’s too complicated to talk about here – but I basically got fed up with boring educational system.

But it does seem like I have some basic scientific intuition, and I got some high marks from “the teacher” for thinking like a scientist, when I was observing the strange creature the Daphnia.

It was also interesting talking to the students from the Nano technology line. They’re looking into how to produce solar arrays that are less harsh on the environment, it turns out that you can use fruit juice from black berries as the base of a solar cell, instead of silicon – amazing.

Bend my circuits

But what I really enjoyed the most, was the tent dedicated to audio, which also included live performances from Dødskuglen, Rumpistol and Bjørn Svin (who I missed).

In the tent some interesting and simple demonstrators were set up, one was a Theremin that was controlled by a plant. You could actually play music by touching the leaves of the plant – very entertaining. Another was a tube with a number of nozzles from which gas could escape, and be lit, if you then played music, the sound-waves would modulate the flames – Daft Punk’s Robot Rock looked quite good “going up in flames”.

Dødskuglen plays with circuit bending, and they had gutted a lot of electronics with audio capabilities, for instance a couple of Furbys, that now looked – and sounded – like mean birds, and when you hooked them up to a keyboard, they were capable of making some wonderful noise.

Dødskuglen has their name from a dome shaped device, that is the center-piece of their show. According to them it’s filled with gutted electronics from Happy Meals and the like – I’m not surprised.

We also got a live demonstration of how to circuit bend – don’t try this at home – you might hit the AC power-supply and die – but if you’re careful, just take a cheap electronic keyboard apart, and try to apply some wire patches live – it was amazing to hear how the standard drum-machine suddenly went into a completely different state, and sounded completely different, only to return to it’s standard loop after being reset.

Kim Bach – The failed musician

After Dødskuglen, Rumpistol took the stage, and he’s using his computer in combination with analogue synthesisers to produce great electronica.

Besides being a failed scientist, I also consider myself a failed musician, but with the simple technology being showcased here, that is so much more fun and intuitive to control than a traditional instrument, I might be able to express myself – I know that I have some music in my head – maybe I can finally make some music – I know that I want a copy of the guitar simulator for the Nintendo DS called Jam Sessions.

A child’s mind

There’s a strange unifying synergy between science and music. When doing science and music, you really need to have a child’s mind, and like to play. That’s something I still, I’d say increasingly, possess – so I might still become a scientist/musician. It’s also noteworthy that a number of my heroes for instance RMS (Richard Stallman) and N (Peter Naur), actually play music themselves.

I went home after having had a great time, with renewed faith in our educational system, it seems to be producing playful scientists – I wished someone had told me that science was about playing, when I was a student.

I hope that Science After Dark will become a recurring event.

Show your <3 for science – make some NOIIIIISSSSSEEEEE!!!

I did, however, hear some rumours the Science After Dark has been frowned upon from the established scientific community. Come down from your ivory towers, Science is FUN and NOISY. Show your <3 for Science – make some NOIIIIISSSSSEEEEE!!!