Visual Lizard

Blog for November 2012

Daily Links

Oz The Great and Powerful

Becoming Better Communicators

Inayaili de Leon writes about the importance of communication, especially when working in a field that is, by definition, all about communication.

New Winnipeg Convention Centre

I was wondering what they were closing off the Workers Compensation Board building's parking lot for. Now I know.

The Patent Problem

Steven Levy writes a solid article over at Wired, talking about how patents have really gotten out of control over the last decade or so.

Grand Theft Auto V

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

How to Force Spotlight to Reindex A Volume

If you use Apple hardware and run OS X, you may encounter a mildly annoying Spotlight issue from time to time where it will not find a file, or an app.

To correct this issue, there are two things you can try. The first is described in this post (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2409) by Apple. They tell you to use System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy (tab). If you drag a folder or hard drive to the Privacy tab, then remove it from there, Spotlight will reindex that item. Sometimes this works.

The second option, which gives you a lot more control, is to fire up the trusty command line found in Applications > Utilities > Terminal and run a couple of commands. The command in question is:

sudo mdutil -E

The -E flag forces Spotlight to erase (hence E) the indicated volume information. If you want to be more specific, such as a folder with your writing in it, or your Applications, you can tailor mdutil as follows:

sudo mdutil -E /volume/path/to/folder

As with all things run in the terminal, when they work, there is no feedback. You just end up back at the command prompt wondering what's up.

For more information on the mdutil functions, you can hit up the Apple Developer documents on mdutil. 

Note: This is advice on the internet, use at your own risk.

Daily Links

An IDE for Poetry

Help for forgetful Poets
Who scarce remember
Rhyme and Meter

iOS 6.1 Now Available

If you are into iOS development, go!

Julie Larson-Green Replaces Steven Sinofsky

Sinofsky was the MS exec in charge of Windows. No reason is given as to why he's elft, but he's being replaced by Larson-Green, who was i charge of program management, UI, and research for Win7 and 8.

Text messaging Declines

Less people are using the phone companies' over-priced service, and instead are switching to apps like Facebook Messages and iMessage, which provides more features without the texts-per-month gouging.

BlackBerry 10 on January 30

Research In Motion is set to make the BlackBerry 10 OS available on January 30th, 2013. After such a long delay, will this help turn the struggling company's fortunes around?

IE10 for Win7

Internet Explorer 10 preview is now available for Windows 7, from Microsoft's download area.

Disappearing Romney: Watch Mitt Romney's Facebook Likes Decrease in Real Time

This is terrific use of the other side of social media.

Monday, November 12th, 2012

Closed in Observance of Remembrance Day

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we are closed in observance of Rememberance Day. We will return to business as usually on Tuesday, November 13, 2012. 

Daily Links

Custom hosts file

If you know what a "hosts" file is, then you can…

Use this file to prevent your computer from connecting to selected internet hosts. This is an easy and effective way to protect you from many types of spyware, reduces bandwidth use, blocks certain pop-up traps, prevents user tracking by way of "web bugs" embedded in spam, provides partial protection to IE from certain web-based exploits and blocks most advertising you would otherwise be subjected to on the internet.

Supreme Court Voids Patent Due to Failed "Patent Bargain"

Let's ignore the almost-comical fact its about Viagra for a moment. The interesting thing about the ruling is the "patent bargin" and the idea of insufficent disclosure. How many software patents (you know the kind I'm talking about) would fail this check, and could be ruled invalid as a consequence?

World War Z

Less Ruby, More Java

Twitter were handling around 327,000 tweets a minute during peak election time, and it was able to sustain that thanks to a partial move away from the Ruby and toward server-side Java Virtual Machine. 

Fancy circle icons with Symbolset and Sass

Nifty!

A Short Lesson in Perspective

A must read article, yes all of it, on the creative people that make things. In this case design, but it works for most every other creative outlet, art, music, writing, poetry, sock puppets, you name it.

Daily Links

iCloud: Using your @icloud.com email address

New @icloud.com email addresses are coming online. Here is the Apple support doc to help you get setup.

What's Open And Closed On Remembrance Day

Access Winnipeg aggregates a handy list of Nov 11th closures, schedules, updates, etc. 

Jam With Chrome

Neat, it's like Garage Band, but in your browser! :D

Expanded User Rights, Now The Law

On Wednesday, the majority of Bill C-11, the copyright reform bill, took effect, marking the most significant changes to Canadian copyright law in decades.

Daily Links

Branding the Presidents of the United States

Design student Meg Jannott has given herself a side-project during school to rebrand the past presidents of the United States. Some very nice work here.

Daily Links

Client Requests Turned into Posters

These are terrific.

"Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome" trailer

Daily Links

Adapting Ourselves to Adaptive Content

To accompany the reading of the latest A Book Apart release, a talk on the subject by author Karen McGrane

Ghost - a thought on Wordpress as a Blog Engine

Nice article detailing the gradual degradation of WordPress over the years. It used to be for blogging exclusively and now it is more a CMS with a blog option.

Increase of downtown Winnipeg Parking rates Nov. 13

City of Winnipeg announced increse of parking rates in downtown and Exchange district for high demand areas. Looks like parking rate on Princess street by Visual Lizard office remains unchanged for now.

Instagram Gets Web Profiles

You can see Facebook's influence on the profile desigm, with the large cover photo and avatr square, etc. They'll apparently be rolling out over the next week.

Omni

You can now read the full run of Omni magazine over at the INternet Archive.

Daily Links

Auto Layout Woes

An accurate summary of Apple's Auto Layout for iOS

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

New Media Manitoba Press Conference

On November 1st, Visual Lizard is playing host to a New Media Manitoba press conference, where the 2012 census results for our industry will be unveiled. Also, we're proud to have Provincial Minister Dave Chomiak of Innovation, Energy and Mines, and Dave Angus; CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce in our offices, both of whom will be presenting and speaking at the event.

There are a lot of people here, all of who are as excited as we are to hear about New Media Manitoba's Manitoba's New Media Strategy, and their three priorities as to where this industry is headed for both Winnipeg and Manitoba. We'll try to post #nmmunveil tweets here as we seem them...

At his point, the event took a short pause to feature a video produced by Handcraft Media…

After the video, the presentation moved away from the New Media Census results, and onto the subject of a new strategy…

The event started at 10am and wrapped up about an hour and a half later to a room full of excited creative people. New Media Manitoba outlined a three priorities that they will be tackling in the immediate future, with a tagline of "Brilliance Of Exchange".

The first priority is mentorship, helping students come out of secondary and post-secondary education better prepared for the new media industry, and giving employers assistance to hire and train these incoming people. The second priority is a sales portal, a way to help burgeoning freelancers, organizations, and companies expand within and beyond the province of Manitoba. The third priority is a co-work facility somewhere within the Exchange, possibly with presentation areas, boardroom spaces, recording studios, etc, providing a physical place for individuals to meet and cooperate and collaborate.

The event wrapped up with a lot of energy. If you couldn't make it, don't worry… New Media Manitoba will be posting a full report, along with notes, slides, and video, to their website later this afternoon!

Daily Links

You know when it's a Devil.

Cleaver commercial that is Halloween appropriate.