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Showing posts with the label software

3D SVG Logo (iG)

Now, how can I transform this into a navigational unit?... See the Pen 3D Transform Study (SVG logo) by Ilya Gerasimenko ( @igstudio ) on CodePen .

...iKaossilator!

I have the original yellow Kaossilator, and I am a big fan. This app, although visually similar in many ways, is fundamentally different in the way it handles the phrases you create; it's not better or worse, it's just different, and if you are to use it, you just have to learn. First of all, it does not record and loop sound, like the original Kaossilator does, it records sequences. The downside of it is that one can't endlessly overdub the track, using the same voice, it will start erasing previous loop eventually (but they do give you five layers to play with, so there is plenty of space to build your riffs). The upside is that you can save, undo, redo the sequense, return to it, re-record, reassign instruments, change the key, tempo, scale, everything, all in real-time, and then save it again.That is big. And the mix play is a very nice feature. WHAT IT NEEDS: Ability to export MIDI Ability to import MIDI (there is no way the tracks in app's library were made w...

document.elementFromPoint

More of a mental note: for document.elementFromPoint IE/Mozilla calculates coordinates of the point from the top left corner of a viewport; WebKit and Opera - from the top left corner of a document.

On The Endless Wonders Of Internet Explorer

May be somebody will stumble upon this post and save some time for him/herself. Apparently—it only become apparent after several hours of trial, cursing and error, as it usually goes with IE—, Internet Explorer (up to version 7) throws a runtime error, if you try to modify innerHTML of the dynamically created element under certain conditions. The conditions, as it always go with IE, are significantly lacking consistent logic. For starters, if you assign innerHTML to the element before you insert it into a DOM tree, the error may not come up at all, but will surface later, when you try to modify it. So far it looks like the error mostly comes up, if you change innerHTML of the block element inserted into inline element (which is not kosher in standard-compliant HTML, so it makes sense), and some nested block elements (like DIVs inside Ps—why is that considered wrong, too?—for instance). So, if one really-really need to insert a division into a paragraph, and w...

Things I Do Not Get

Amongst many things, and in no particular order: A Web-standard-compliant box model. Why the default size of the box is determined by it's contents, and why the padding should be added to the overall dimensions. The Internet Explorer's model makes more sense (blasphemy). It does. Another CSS thing which puzzles me: why I can float things right and left, but not to the center? Right and left here are in fact top-right and top-left, but I sooo could use bottom-right and bottom-left positions as well... And why decided that vertical margins should collapse? Not a very important one, but still... really, why?

On UPS Communications And Delivery Options

OK. I never had any significant luck when I order something with delivery. One way or another, something will ALWAYS go wrong. The following is merely a documented process of getting the item I bought on the web, delivered by UPS, no rush, regular 2-5 business days option. Tracking info from UPS website: US 01/10/2008 6:52 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED KANSAS CITY, KS, US 01/10/2008 7:17 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN KANSAS CITY, KS, US 01/11/2008 1:31 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN SECAUCUS, NJ, US 01/14/2008 10:30 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN SECAUCUS, NJ, US 01/15/2008 1:37 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN NEW YORK, NY, US 01/15/2008 1:58 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN 01/15/2008 6:48 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY So far so good, right? I was smart, too—gave them my office address, just to make sure I won't miss it. Now, at around noon I go to the restroom, strangely located outside the office's backdoor, next to a freight eleva...

Netscape Is Dead

I feel sooo old. Somehow, when Microsoft announced the end of support for the Internet Explorer for Mac at the version 5.2, I didn't feel that weird, but I always was a bit of a fan of NN—just to stick it to the man, I guess—, even after I switched to Firefox a couple of years ago and made it a primary browser on my Windows machines, having Safari rule my Mac environment. Surviving a web browser may not be a life-changing experience, but it does make one ponder...

On Addictivity And Connectivity

First things first—after a year (at least) of drooling over one, I finally decided to cash in my almost-two-years-of-non-smoking credits, and got myself an EWI . It sounds a bit like a medical condition, and frankly, it's quite mental, because I can't stop playing with it. So far it seems to be an amusingly addictive instrument even with a stock soundbank—I plan on making my own patches later, as soon as I figure out how to use that UniQuest joke of a software—worst of all, it can be played in headphones, so I can do it even at 4am if I wanted to. So far, I have more fun then problems playing it, in spite of its little fingering differences (I use SA(x) mode), and totally different breathing technique. Now comes the connectivity part. I've used FastTrack USB for a couple of years with a microphone through the XLR input with no problems, but when I tried to connect a line output of EWI's synthesizer to the line input of the FastTrack, the signal level was very low. T...

Template Update

Nothing special, really, just updated the blogger template for the sake of trying something new. And, yea, I lost my previous template backup somehow, so there was no way back. Now I have found my backup, but I don't like it anymore, so I am going to stay with this template for a while. Who cares.

On Voice Recognition

I: (touch the Bluetooth headset button) Phone: (beeps ascending scale, then in a female voice) Please, say a command. I: Call Darya. Phone: Command not recognized. Please, say a command. I: Call Dar. Phone: Did you say (pause, then in a male distorted voice) Darrin ? I: No! Phone: (in a female voice) Did you say (in a male distorted voice) Dennis ? I: NO! DARYA! I SAID DARYA !!! Phone: (in a female voice) Are you sure? Because I'am pretty sure you said David ... Which is strange, since there is nobody by that name in your Contacts. Neither there is Darrin , nor Dennis . My battery is low. And I am tired. And you are nuts. Please, say a command. I: Fuck you. Phone: Command not recognized. Go fuck yourself. Please, say a command. Phone: Command timed out. (beeps descending scale) I: (sigh) ...

Writing A Job Description For Myself

It is kind of a fun assignment: to write your own job description. Nevertheless, worth trying... OK, soooo... after I leave this job, you, guys, are going to be looking for a Visual Web Designer/Front-End Web Developer with a minimum (well, and maximum, too) of B(F)A, schooled in both conventional (hard copy) as well as fluid layout (web) composition, with experience in image editing, web image optimization, typography, with strong hand-coding (no WYSIWYG!) skill set (XHTML/DHTML, CSS, client-side JavaScript) and basic understanding of .NET developing environment. The above professional should be aware of the latest Web design trends and principles, and be able to create standard-compliant cross-browser and cross-platform HTML structures and be able to (err... to see them being butchered by the developer team without spiraling down into a fit? no, not that...) oversee and ensure proper implementation of the aforementioned designs, as well as being able to maintain and troubleshoot (i.e...

On IE7 Upgrade

Since I really have nothing to loose at work, where I am spending my last two weeks (I gave a notice on Monday), I have upgraded to IE7. After that I have spent two hours, trying to figure out, why my website makes IE7 crash. I finally did, but damn, that was entertaining. It looks like document.open('text/html','replace') needed to loose the replace argument, document.writeln() can not be used for writing links to external scripts, the address bar is not removable anymore, and window.resizeTo() doesn't want to work (that pretty much disables all my portfolio galleries). Lovely. What was even more annoying, is that IE would work with .html files, if they were opened locally, but crash, when opening the exact same files from the server. So much for the upgrade. All other imaginable browsers do display my site correctly, with little or no problems. Even Opera. P.S. During the fixing fit, I removed the reflection.js script---which wasn't mine anyway, I was jus...

An iMovie bug AGAIN

After several month of not making any movies, I am trying a new project. Right of the start something is wrong, freshly imported unedited line of clips is not being played correctly in iMovie preview window - video stops in about 30sec or so, while audio goes on. If I switch to full screen, it gives me another 10sec of video, then it stops there, too, and nothing brings frozen video back to life. After restarting the app, everything repeats. Needless to say it's impossible to edit. It also does it with the older projects, which used to work just fine. Here is what I've done so far: 1. Repaired permissions on startup disk and checked it for errors. 2. Repaired external disk, where the project resides (even tried to move the project to internal disk with no avail - same results), and where I have 80GB of free space. 3. Replaced external disk's directory, using DiskWarrior. 4. Deleted iMovie preferences file. 5. Removed all third-party plug-ins I had. Nothing works. QuickTime ...

On Apples And Oranges

I am no market analyst. I would never want to be one, for that matter, so I am not. I am, however, stalked by several thoughts on the matter of yesterday's Apple's announcement of "plans to deliver models of its Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors". The questions, which are bothering me are: 1. The Megabytes Myth. Is it just me, or somebody else remember, too, that first G4, and than G5 processors were introduced as first true 64-bit processing chips (after G5s appeared, the G4s somehow were removed from the 64-bit processing scene, anybody remember that? I am still compelled by the fact, that my iMac Flat Screen is not a 64-bit processor ANYMORE, but I understand now why it's running so slow recently. It used to be a lot faster, when it was a 64-bit. Sucks.), which are incomparably better, than whimpy Intels? From the no-market-analyst point of view, there are two explanations to this phenomenon: a) The Megabytes Myth is not a Myth, which subjectively...

iLife Revisited

After several months of DV abstinence, partly caused by an unprecedented attack of GarageBand eiphoria , partly - absence of footage of any value, due to rather eventless existance, I finally decided to return to the most time consuming of all of my activities, and make a movie again. Following is a short summary of the experience. I promise to keep this rant as technically oriented, as I can, in hope, that it might be of some benefit to fellow users. During nearly half of the year, which passed since my last cinematographic endevour, there were a couple of QuickTime updates, iPhoto update, and several system and security updates. Current set-up: System: Mac OS X (10.3.6) iMovie 4.0.1 iDVD 4.0.1 QuickTime 6.2 (Pro) iMac G4 800MHz 1GB RAM Good things first: audio and video ARE in synk throughout the whole 1 hour and 39 minutes of the show. I would be thrilled, if it didn't happen before, but the good thing is that it's still there. This is about it. 1. iMovie is as sl...