Tag: apple

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Heyerdahl.no – iDiamond – the ultimate BlingShuffle

iDiamond iPod shuffleHeyerdahl.no – iDiamond

I knew that there would be a market for “gadget jewellery”, but this bling-iPod shuffle from the Norwegian Jeweller Thomas Heyerdahl in Oslo is just a bit over the top, being priced at €31.000/US $41.000. The shuffle is adorned by a total of 430 diamonds, with 312 used for the player and 118 used for the earbuds.

Looking at the “diggs” this gadget is getting, it’s a great marketing stunt by Heyerdahl. The iPod is “iconic”, but I think that it would have been much more interesting if they had made an exclusive design, instead of relying on a $79 industrial design. OTOH, linking up with the hyped Apple brand is probably a smart move, and it’s unlikely that I’d heard about it, if they had done an exclusive design.

Personally I find the details about how the gadget was manufactured, much more interesting than the gadget itself.

It was manufactured by a Dutch company called Diaro Digital Design, using the 3D-modelling software Rhinoceros.

Kopiavidiamond2Details about the iDiamond from the Heyerdahl website:

  • 1 pcs. / Special edition / Not for commercial sale.
  • Produced for Heyerdahl by: Diaro Digital Design – Robert de Brueijs / The Netherlands / www.diaro.nl
  • 3D production: CAD / CAM 3D design / Rhinoceros
  • Wax model made by: Solidcape T66Bt2 Wax printer.
  • Casting method: Vacuumcasting
  • Diamond setting: Handcrafted micro Pavè setting.
  • Details engraved: Laser engraved details

Details about iDiamond aren’t available on the Diaro Digital Design website, but I suppose that they’ll update their site soon.

The pictures that accompanies this article were copied from the Heyerdahl website, and are most likely copyright Gullsmed Heyerdahl A.S., I consider my use of the pictures to be fair use.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Design Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Music Technology

KEWL Laptop from Dell (XPS M1330) – featuring Devo

WOW! What’s going on these days…

Dell is seriously challenging Apple with their new laptops, and I just LOVE Devo, great new track. Even HP and especially LG delivers nice and cheap sub-notebooks these days.

And now that I’m turning to the “dark side” for my new job (ASP.NET development), I might get one – now do they have them in green 😉

Freedom OF choice is what you GOT – Freedom FROM choice is what you WANT (or that’s what Apple would like us to believe)

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Blogs Bookmarks Humor Katte Kim Blog (English) Macintosh Mactopia Open Source Technology

“Hello Kitty” – Leopards are KEWL but I want something CUTE (and FREE)

Baby Clouded LeopardAfter being AWOL from Macnyt – lurking and being EXTREMELY bored with what was going on there, I’m, Bach! (For a short notice I think…)

Poor new user BTW. I have since repented and answered on-topic. Sometimes we’re not too friendly to new users @ Macnyt – thank you for pointing that out Cathrine – and read on! This is not as boring as usual – ah maybe it is – or rather: “it has no interest what-so-ever” to you ;-))”.

Well, a common Macnyt scenario (when I’m involved;-)), unfolded:

It started by me “thread-jacking” a serious discussion about “if you should wait for the next version of Mac OS X: Leopard to buy a Mac, in order to save a few – 129 actually – bucks” (:: macnyt :: danmark :: – Leopard eller Tiger) (a frequent – and ANNOYING – asked question BTW. Come on: if you need a computer get it ASAP – Leopard will not improve your creativity significantly compared to Tiger, but a MacBook Pro most likely will – to quote Ben Hammersley: “Da Vinci would have killed for a PowerBook”).

“Hello Kitty”

Well, the thread took a major turn, and we began discussing “cats” (and Nintendo DS – but I’ll save that for another time)!

I think that Leopards are KEWL, much more so than Tigers, and I also found out that they’re TOO CUTE (for proof look here: Clouded Leopard Project – Babies, from where the picture for this article was taken).

But “we’re” running out of names for “cats”: Puma, Cheeta, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard already in use , so I began throwing ideas for new names for Mac OS X around, suggesting Felix, Norwegian Forrest Cat – and indeed it turned out that a lot of people already had ideas like that (and one I – and others – had in mind actually feel victim to self-censorship ;-)).

Mac OS X 10.6 – “Garfield” (LOL) would be great, and a computer that refused to start on Mondays would not be such a bad idea after all, even though edible drives made from Lasagna might not. But really: the current batch of Macs are “obese” as it is, they need to go on a diet, something Garfield will NEVER do.

Anyways…This made me think that Apple should create a CUTE version of Mac OS and call it:

Mac OS X 10.6: “Hello Kitty”

Here kitty, kitty, kitty…Ubuntu killed the cat

My good buddy Esben was quick to point out that Gibbons and Fawns are WAY KEWLer than Cats, and would have a brighter future, if some big players like Adobe agreed.

Shuttleworth could maybe “forget some boxes” at Adobes offices, if there’s still room next to “boxes” Steve already has “forgotten” there.

CS on Linux would be the ultimate “Cat killer”. Actually I think this is bound to happen, Adobe is looking for new markets, and ways to distance themselves from Microsoft and Apple, and with the increasing support for Linux that Adobe is rolling out (Flash and Apollo), I’m optimistic, and Shuttleworth can keep spending his money on Ubuntu.

Apple should fear that day, all they will be left with is Microsoft Office.

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Blogs Bookmarks Computere og Internet Kim Blog (English) Macintosh Mactopia Open Source Technology

How to implement native Danish spell-checking in Mac OS X – Apple: steal it, I’ll post bail

Bad Apple

A discussion on the Danish Macintosh community, Macnyt, about the missing native Danish spell-checking in Mac OS X, let me to speculate on what it would take to implement it. Apple you’re more than welcome to steal it, and I’ll even post bail ;-).

NOTE to Danish Mac users: What follows will not give you native (Danish) spell-checking in Mac OS X, but it describes what I believe would be required, by Apple, to implement it.

What? No Danish?

Apple’s Mac OS X comes with a very nice, integrated spell-checking service. Unfortunately there’s no support for the Danish language, and this omission hits all Mac OS X applications that plug into Mac OS X for their spell checking services. This excludes Microsoft Office:mac and most open source software like Open Office and NeoOffice, that has their own spell checkers, but it hits all system applications as well as Apple’s own iLife, IWork and most other 3rd party applications.

I know from experience that this is a major issue with Danish Mac users, the question surfaces again and again.

cocoAspell to the rescue

The current solution is to install cocoAspell, a Mac OS X wrapper for the Aspell open source spell checker, and download the Danish dictionary. If you understand Danish, you can also get help from Æbletræet and this detailed guide (ZIP file) made by a Macnyt user.

Unfortunately that is not something the average person knows how to do, and it’s relatively complicated.

How to implement native Danish spell-checking in Mac OS X

So here it is: This is what I have found out, that it would take to implement native Danish spell checking in Mac OS X.

From an implementation point-of-view, it looks like it is quite straightforward.

Everything is located in the AppleSpell.service package, that is located in /System/Library/Services.

The file is organised like a .app package, first a Contents folder, that contains a Resources and a Mac OS X folder, along with a PkgInfo file and some .plist files.

Each supported language is represented by an entry in a .plist file called info.plist located in Contents, and a .lproj folder located in Contents/Resources.

The .lproj folder contains two files, one is called bindict, the other Dictionary.dat.

Problem: bindict and Dictionary.dat are binary files, and I haven’t been able to locate ANY documentation of the formats.

Step-by-step guide (for the Apple engineers):

  1. Get a copy of the “Store Danske Ordliste”
  2. Organise it “in a manner that is compatible with your indexing software” (this is the hard part, and I’m sure you could get community involvement in this).
  3. Run it through your indexing application (or lend us a copy)
  4. Create a new AppleSpell.service package
  5. Add the entry for Danish to the Contents/info.plist file
  6. Add a folder for Danish language to Contents/Resources
  7. Add the bindict and Dictionay.dat files created by the indexing application to the folder for Danish language
  8. Replace the old AppleSpell.service package with the new
  9. Ask the Danish Mac community to help test it
  10. Release it with the next, minor, update of Mac OS X

I estimate that it would take no longer than 1 man-week to implement and test this – so Apple come on…

p.s.. do you really need to reinvent the wheel?

In many ways cocoAspell, is a better and, not least, open solution, so Apple you should really consider the alternative: drop the native spell-checker and embrace cocoAspell, there’s really no need to reinvent the wheel is there?

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Reboot9: BBC “caught” using the “two-dot-O-M-G” word

BBC News Logoreboot 9 logoAs you might have noticed, I attended the reboot “(un)conference” in Copenhagen last week, and it was great.

I’d like to draw your attention to the feature “Rebooting the Web 2.0 age” on reboot 9 that BBC ran during the “(un)conference”.

Here’s a quote from the article:

The future of the web is being debated at Reboot 9.0, a leading European grassroots technology and design conference in Copenhagen.

But…”oh-my-two-dot-oh-NO” they’re using the “two-dot-O-M-G” dreaded “two-dot-oh-YEAH” word…

The big question here for the start-ups and opinion formers is how to use Web 2.0’s focus on community to build the next generation of web tools and become Europe’s Web 2.0 poster child.

I guess I can forgive the BBC, since the feature is “more than decent” ;-), and they capture some of the spirit of reboot in this quote:

This year’s conference theme is Human? with many speakers grappling with such deep philosophical queries as what it means to be human. One session was called Humanism 101.

Understanding human behaviour and how to adapt those behaviours to technology and the web rather than the reverse is rare for technology devotees.

Last.fm LogoAnd Last.fm deserves all the love in the world, iTunes might never know what hit them.

However, it is no surprise as the big subject in the bars and on the grass outside was this week’s sale of London social software music service Last.fm.

Its creator Martin Stiskel, explaining why US broadcaster CBS would want to buy a music preference tool said: “They want to move from a content company to an audience company, giving the audiences control and learning from this and that’s why Last.fm was their choice.”

I’m nominating Last.fm for the price of being the “greatest service on the planet”, even though it makes it look like I have absolutely no taste in music – is it about time to get more discriminating, and start “acting my age, not my shoesize” – nah some people have actually expressed love for my personal radiostation ;-), and I get shouts like this:

Du er på alder med min far, men jeres musiksmag ligger usandsynligt langt fra hinanden. Det er meget godt klaret! Respekt herfra 🙂

(translation from Danish: You’re the age of my father, but your taste in music is unbelievably far from each others. That’s well done! Respect :)).

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Reboot9 (un)conference “spinoff”: the conversation continues @ the “rebooters” mailing list

The great reboot 9.0 Jaiku backchannel posterI just joined the new google groups (e.g. mailinglist), called rebooters.

The purpose of the group, is to have a “permanent backchannel” for the reboot (un)conference, since backchannels, like the Jaiku backchannel from reboot9, has a tendency to “die”.

The mailing list has the following description:

Missing the brainshift experienced from talking to all the brilliant rebooters? Keep the conversation going between reboots here…

It’s a good idea – that would have been even better, if it was set up, officially, through the reboot website, but because website technologies change all the time, the use of a relatively low-tech solution, like a mailing-list, is a not as bad an idea as it sounds – e-mail still is “the lowest common denominator”.

This might help to avoid the frustrations I experienced, when I learned that the “reboot 8” site had it’s URLs changed, making it appear that a lot of information from 2006, had either been lost, or, at best, made (too) difficult to locate.

“I want my Permalinks”, and I’m looking forward to the continued discussions and next year, where I suggest that the organisers make away with the “Wired style dot-oh-NO” numbering scheme, and just calls the event “reboot”!

Some background

“Reboot” is, according to the website:

[…]a community event for the practical visionaries who are at the intersection of digital technology and change all around us[…]

Reboot usually takes place end May/start June, in Copenhagen Denmark.

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Bookmarks Mactopia Open Source Technology

LinuxForAlle.dk – Ang:Almindelig bærbar el. Apple MacBook Pro? –

LinuxForAlle.dk – Ang:Almindelig bærbar el. Apple MacBook Pro? –

Denne tråd kunne være mere interessant end den er blevet, men emnet er interessant og jeg håber på at der kommer egende svar i den

Det var i hvertfald en god anledning til at registrere sig på LinuxForAlle.dk, som virker som en fin og nyttig ressource.

Jeg har også hentet Ubuntu 7.04, desværre ville den ikke boote på min Acer, sagde der var fejl på fd0 enheden (harddisken?), så jeg leder efter andre egnede test computere, boot sekvensen er i hvertfald blevet meget mere strømlinjet sammenlignet med Ubuntu 6.10.

ps. Leder efter egende testcomputere DOH, jeg har jo en Mac mini ved hånden, and guess what, den kører nu Ubuntu 7.04 fra Live CDen UDEN problemer, og det ser lækkert ud.

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Bookmarks Design Humor Mactopia

Sex and Drugs and Drag’n’Drop: Macnyt T-shirt konkurrencen er i fuld sving

Sex and Drugs and Drag'n'Drop T-ShirtT-shirt.jpg

Originally uploaded by Wendelboe.

Macnyt T-shirt konkurrencen er jo i fuld sving (pun intended), og Wendelboe er kommet op med dette geniale design – desværre kan man jo ikke gå med den – alt for konventionel…

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Bookmarks Design Mactopia Technology

Designkonkurrence – Æbletræet – Vind en Nabaztag Kanin

Æbletræet.dk logoDesignkonkurrence – Æbletræet

Æbletræet – det åbne sted for Apple kulturen i Danmark – har, i anledning af sin 1 års fødselsdag, udskrevet en designkonkurrence, her er hvad de skriver:

I anledning af Æbletræets 1 års-fødseslsdag, har vi besluttet at det er på tide at tage sitet til det næste niveau, og få et liv, ahem, et webdesign.

Vi ved godt at indhold er konge, men…

Så alle I kreative sjæle derude: Kom med jeres bedste forslag, så kan det være netop du bliver den lykkelige ejer af en Kanin! JA du læste rigtigt en KANIN!

For at motivere jer udlodder vi i samarbejde med Nabz! en første-generations Nabaztag WiFi Kanin til de bedste webdesignforslag til Æbletræet.

Overordnet er vi interessede i et rent CSS design, helst uden brug af absolut positionering, og vi ønsker også at benytte det eksisterende logo (se billede) .

Vi har tidligere eksperimenteret med forskellige designforslag. Vi har dog ikke været helt tilfredse, men de give jer et indtryk af vores tanker om sitets design.

Vi har også eksperimenteret med et oplæg til en ny forside, som kan ses her.

Det er nogle af de tanker, vi er interesserede i at få med i et fremtidigt design, men der er egentlig frit slag.

Så brug din kreativitet.

Regler:

Æbletræet får ret til at anvende designet
Du bliver krediteret som designer
Forslag skal være sendt til redaktionen@theappletree.dk, senest den 30-April-2007 kl. 23:59 CEST

Vi vil gerne høre fra dig, så hurtigt som muligt, hvis du er interesseret i at bidrage med et design.

Note: Undertegnede (Kim Bach) er initiativtager til både Æbletræet og Nabz!

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3-Apr-2006: Sådan planter man et Æbletræ on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

3-Apr-2006: Sådan planter man et Æbletræ3-Apr-2006: Sådan planter man et Æbletræ on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Den 3-Apr-2006 mødtes Kim og Esben på cafeen High-Q for første gang. 5 timer efter mødet var projektet en virtuel realitet da wikien gik online. Projektet er senere blevet til Æbletræet, men dengang arbejdede vi under kodenavnet macwiki, og vi er vist kommet “lidt” længere siden dette: Macnyt: Hjælp til nybegyndere.

Før var jeg tit træt og deprimeret. Så prøvede jeg æbletræet.dk. Nu har jeg det meget bedre, og nu kan jeg tilmed få gaderespekt. Tak for hjælpen kære Æbletræ! Du er bare ALLETIDERS.

Tillykke med 1 års dagen!

Det skal da fejres, vi ses måske på RHP i morgen, hvor nogle folk i dagens anledning har sat en fødsesldagsfest op.

Desværre er de jo ikke klar over at de egentlig fejrer Æbletræets 1 års fødselsdag, men der er faktisk en del af “Ånden fra 69” i Æbletræet!

Det hedder frivilligt arbejde, creative commons og open source! Viva la revolution!