On arriving home last Friday we were greeted by a part open front window, footprints on the windowsill and gouge marks to the bottom of the window frame.
Suffice to say, we’d had a visit from some uninvited… [insert derogatory expletive]. They’d wrenched the front sash window, which had pulled the lock screws out of their holes. They must have used some force.
The list of missing items was small, but none the less distressing and, thank God, nothing of important or deeply sentimental value. However, as any Mac lover / user will say, losing your machine is a big thing. Especially if that machine is your 6 week old MacBook Air!
Yep, it’s gone. But thankfully my ‘main’ machine (MacBook Pro) was locked up at work and on which resides all my music, photos, apps and general clutter that you amass over time. The Air was pretty clean, standard install stuff, but I was still prompted to spend and hour in an internet cafe on Saturday morning changing passwords to things like flickr, jaiku, del.icio.us, pownce, WordPress, YouTube, facebook, linkedIn, the list went on. Anything else was backed up on my Lacie pocket drive.
Anyway, what’s done is done. I’m severely hacked off but thankfully, safe and well…
This has prompted me, however, to make a purchase of Orbicule’s, Undercover software. This will now sit on my Pro and new Air - when the insurance finally cough up. There would be nothing better that to track the thieving scumbags down with a bit of cyber investigation.
For what it’s worth, I will be publishing the serial number of the stolen machine when I hunt down the receipt. Just on the off chance…
The much anticipated web-based version of Photoshop has launched. It’s a public beta. Initial reports say it is vastly cut down from the original. Surely not? You mean you thought they were going to do an entire online version in Flex and Flash and do themselves out of $[insert, large, number] of revenue each year? They even need to be careful not to overlap with Photoshop Elements. They’re also offering 2GB of free web space - which is nice.
Photoshop Express Home Page
I haven’t used it yet, but will no doubt give it a whirl in the next few days. Even though I have a fully CS3′d up machine, I’ll look on this in the same way I treat my MacBook Air. A lightweight nut cracker to crack a nut home-based tool. An iPhoto retouching replacement rather than a Photoshop replacement - if that makes sense.
Following up on my post about Paul Rand from a few days ago, check out this video of Steve Jobs commenting on his working relationship with Paul Rand in the early 90s when Rand did the Next computers logo.
Michael Bierut is a partner at Pentagram, an international design agency with offices in both Europe and the US. In my previous life, I blogged about a book he wrote ‘79 short essay on design‘ which I really enjoyed. Whilst browsing ‘The Serif‘ for some inspiration last week, I stumbled across a link to this video on the Pentagram website. An interview with Michale Bierut from the Atlantic magazine.
I like a lot of what this guy says and his general attitude to design.
Check it out here. Embedding Brightcove video is proving problematic.
Listening to Michael talk made me think about the interview with Erik Spiekermann in the Helvetica documentary. If you are even vaguely interested in design or type, I wholeheartedly recommend this movie. It does have a lot of design geek jokes in there but it’s well worth the time investment. The actual movie has lot more from Erik. He is quite hilarious in the film but there doesn’t seem to be any longer clips showing this on YouTube.
So said Paul Rand. I could fill posts and posts in the blog with some of his sayings and quotes. All very insightful, many witty but all absolutely true. Most of all though he was, and still is, known for some of the most iconic design work produced in the 20th century. If anyone in the design industry was at the very top of their game it was Paul Rand.
From the IBM and NEXT computers logo to the now defunct identity for UPS. His work was that perfect fusion of form and content, something the web could do with a lot more.
Anyway, I’ve recently stumbled across a great Paul Rand resource. Paul-Rand.com is a catalogue of his work. I don’t believe it’s exhaustive but, as the about says, it’s ever expanding and looking for material. I could spend hours looking through his work and probably will over the comping weeks.
Seeing the site reminded me of a lovely little tribute video on YouTube.
