https://andybeaumont.com/ Recent content on Andy Beaumont Hugo -- gohugo.io Sun, 19 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/on-plaforms/ Sun, 19 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/on-plaforms/ Back in early 2013 I got an email inviting me to join the beta for Medium. I can’t remember how or why this happened, but it did. You should see “contribute” buttons on most of the collections. You will also be able to create collections of your own and customize your Medium profile page. It sounded interesting, so I signed up, poked around, and loved what I found. There was a built-in community thanks to the Twitter authentication and thematic collections that anyone could submit stories to. https://andybeaumont.com/post/digital-ripples/ Thu, 05 Oct 2017 10:57:01 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/digital-ripples/ Water Strider by Daniel Pink on Flickr Over millions of years, nature managed to evolve a creature with such a delicate presence that it can stand on the surface of water without breaking the surface tension — the water strider. When they move though, water striders create a series of ripples that emanate out from each foot. The ripples are often large enough to scare away whatever prey they’d had their eye on, and to attract the attention of predators. https://andybeaumont.com/post/i-tried-to-fix-my-macbook-pro-s-touch-bar/ Thu, 21 Sep 2017 10:32:15 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/i-tried-to-fix-my-macbook-pro-s-touch-bar/ with insulating tape £2000 If you need the large screen of the 15” MacBook Pro, you have no option of having some actual keys at the top of your keyboard. Instead, you get what Apple calls the Touch Bar. Now, this is a terrible name for it. If you’re a touch typist, or even if you’ve just been using Mac keyboards for a long time, you know where everything is, and not only that but you can feel where everything is using the sense of touch. https://andybeaumont.com/post/website-supplier-selection-tips/ Tue, 09 May 2017 09:03:53 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/website-supplier-selection-tips/ Note: This article originally appeared onCharityConnect so some of it is specific to the third sector. However I think there’s enough in here that it might be useful to a broader audience too. Choosing a supplier for your new website is hard, even for big organisations who have dedicated in-house expertise. Most charities and non-profits don’t fit into that description; often they’ll have just a few people who muck in when they get time between all the stuff that’s actually in their job description. https://andybeaumont.com/post/i-bought-the-new-macbook-pro-so-you-don-t-have-to/ Tue, 17 Jan 2017 15:04:43 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/i-bought-the-new-macbook-pro-so-you-don-t-have-to/ The new MacBook Pro caused quite a kerfuffle on release. “It’s not aimed at pros” they said, “not enough RAM” they said, “Apple have abandoned their users” they said. I’ve been using Macs for knocking on 30 years and haven’t bought a non-Apple computer in all that time, so I trusted Apple. I figured they must have actually tested this thing, they must be confident that it’s better than the previous generation. https://andybeaumont.com/post/immolation-by-fire-tv/ Wed, 05 Nov 2014 12:57:41 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/immolation-by-fire-tv/ Image via Wikimedia Commons Given that in a previous post on Medium I called for TV manufacturers to give us dumb panels to which we can connect any number of little black boxes for our “smart” features, I’m building up quite a collection of these little boxes while stubbornly refusing to upgrade a television that I hate to something with features I don’t want. This week I added an Amazon Fire TV to my collection. https://andybeaumont.com/post/dumb-tv/ Tue, 07 Jan 2014 17:13:01 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/dumb-tv/ TVs last a long time and the upgrade cycle is very slow. In the six years or so that I’ve owned my current TV I’ve gone through 3 smartphones, 3 laptops, 2 games consoles and two tablets. My TV just keeps soldiering on. The things connected to my TV have changed too — where there used to be a Mac Mini with EyeTV there is now a YouView box and an Apple TV. https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-value-of-content/ Fri, 29 Nov 2013 13:46:47 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-value-of-content/ TC;DR I made a Tumblr that accidentally went viral. For a year or so I’d been collecting screengrabs of websites that obscure their content behind modal overlays, begging for newsletter signups, follows, likes, or even adverts that direct you to another site entirely. In the words of Brad Frost, bullshit. Throughout that year they were becoming more and more prevalent and more and more invasive. I made a Tumblr site to collect them on, called it Tab Closed; Didn’t Read and posted one lone tweet announcing it to the world. https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-twitter-experiment-has-failed-let-s-go-back-/ Tue, 28 May 2013 14:17:36 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-twitter-experiment-has-failed-let-s-go-back-/ I’m signed into Twitter right now. At a quick glance, the entire list of posts on the first screen are relevant to me. I’m willing to bet the same is not true for you though. You probably have to scroll through 30 posts to find 4 that you actually care about. I’m going to show you how you can make Twitter useful again. I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while now. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2013-05-08-farewell-ray-harryhausen/ Wed, 08 May 2013 14:38:06 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2013-05-08-farewell-ray-harryhausen/ My grandad introduced me to Ray Harryhausen when I was about 5 and I was obsessed with his films as a kid. His was the first filmmaker’s name I ever knew, and his work was the first thing that ever made me wonder about the process of making films. His movies are a big part of why I grew up with such a love of film. I introduced my daughter to them when she was 3, we watched Clash of the Titans together and she was every bit as enthralled as I had ever been. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2013-01-09-archers-early-warning-system/ Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:12:41 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2013-01-09-archers-early-warning-system/ I made a little thing. I totally love Radio 4, but I also totally hate The Archers, so I figured I would hack together a little bot that would warn me whenever The Archers is about to spoil my day. Then I realised I'm probably not alone in hating The Archers so I made it announce its warnings on Twitter. Follow it for your own peace of mind. PS. This sketch by John Finnemore is exactly what The Archers sounds like to me. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-10-02-dealing-with-recruiter-spam/ Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:43:16 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-10-02-dealing-with-recruiter-spam/ If you’re anything like me you probably get several unsolicited emails per day from black-hat recruitment consultants. If you’re like me you’ve probably tried lots of ways of dealing with this, from replying to them asking to be removed from their database to publicly calling them out on Twitter. None of this works though, they keep emailing you, and new ones pop up on a regular basis. So let’s keep a collaborative list of the companies that spam us in a format ready for dropping into a Gmail filter. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-10-01-errol-morris-forensic-epistemologist/ Mon, 01 Oct 2012 12:46:09 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-10-01-errol-morris-forensic-epistemologist/ Just in case you needed any more reasons to love Errol Morris, this is a fantastic interview. Discovered via the wonderful Longform. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-09-27-photo-post/ Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:16:32 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-09-27-photo-post/ While on a recent trip to Madrid spending a lot of time in taxis, I discovered that the motion detection in the iOS 6 camera panorama mode can be tricked by pointing your iPhone out the window of a moving car with some pretty interesting results. Stuff that’s far away tends to hold together fairly sensibly, but anything closer to the camera gets chopped up in crazy ways. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-08-15-daily-mail-safety-net/ Wed, 15 Aug 2012 08:08:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-08-15-daily-mail-safety-net/ You know that feeling you get when you accidentally click on a link to an article on the Daily Mail website? You know that red mist that descends when you see that sidebar full of pictures ridiculing celebrities for having cellulite or being overweight? You know how your blood pressure goes through the roof when you accidentally read one of the comments? Well, here's a safety net for your browser. It's a Safari extension which will automatically pass any Daily Mail page you accidentally visit to Instapaper's page cleaner, which removes the sidebar and the comments and the adverts and a bunch of other distracting page cruft. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-04-18-how-to-organise-a-meeting/ Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:58:22 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-04-18-how-to-organise-a-meeting/ welcometotechnology Hello. Did you know that you can check somebody’s availability for a meeting slot before you book it in and expect them to be there? In iCal, click on Available Meeting Times… And it will show you this window… …which will let you know the availability of everybody in your invitee list. You can even click the “Next Available Time” button in the top right hand corner to find a slot when everyone is free. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-04-05-google-glass/ Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:30:42 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2012-04-05-google-glass/ Glass, powered by Android INT. DAY. EARLY MORNING. FIRST PERSON. You wake up, put on your Google Glass and look out the window. Some graphics pop up showing today's weather. An alert pops up over the top... [in vision gfx]"Weather has unexpectedly quit, would you like to restart weather?" You walk to the kitchen and pick up a box of Frosties. [ivg] "Click here to meet lonely cougars in your area" https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-09-16-peer-fear-is-the-mind-killer/ Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:50:45 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-09-16-peer-fear-is-the-mind-killer/ jimunwin: The fear of failure stops many people creating. But there are ways to still their trembling hand and better yet they may already be doing lots of creative things without realising. So, how can you help a potential artist over the final few hurdles to sharing their work? This story starts in a conversation with a writer friend of mine. We were talking about his currently stalled book, and then drifted onto my own novel. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-07-14-quick-and-easy-wireflows-in-omnigraffle/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:35:11 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-07-14-quick-and-easy-wireflows-in-omnigraffle/ 1) select your whole page layout, then choose Edit->Copy As->PDF 2) paste onto your wireflows page. 3) set a fill colour of white, a one pixel border of mid grey, and optionally a drop shadow You might at this point be thinking “but Andy, now I’ve pasted it as a PDF item I can’t edit it if the design changes?!” but you’d be wrong. Double clicking the pasted PDFs lets you do a linkback edit. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-07-08-photo-post/ Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:36:18 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-07-08-photo-post/ Monsieur Rock. #beerclub #tt / on Instagram http://instagr.am/p/HOih_/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-24-photo-post/ Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:07:01 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-24-photo-post/ #tt / on Instagram http://instagr.am/p/GR8DC/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-18-photo-post/ Sat, 18 Jun 2011 15:11:46 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-18-photo-post/ Point this way. / on Instagram http://instagr.am/p/F7925/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-16-photo-post/ Thu, 16 Jun 2011 05:41:46 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-16-photo-post/ / on Instagram http://instagr.am/p/FzaPl/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-15-photo-post/ Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:42:19 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-15-photo-post/ Tonight’s beer: Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinas courtesy of @timspear. #beerclub / on Instagram http://instagr.am/p/Fx4L3/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-15-photo-post-2/ Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:30:43 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-06-15-photo-post-2/ Testing. / on Instagram http://instagr.am/p/FxQSC/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-04-11-dear-adobe/ Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:13:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2011-04-11-dear-adobe/ WTF does this even mean? Holy tablet-revolution Batman! Today also sees Adobe extend the creative process beyond the desktop by helping integrate tablet devices into creative workflows. The new Adobe Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit (SDK) enables developers to build tablet applications that interact with Photoshop from Android, BlackBerry PlayBook and iOS devices. Adobe also announced three new iPad applications that demonstrate the creative possibilities of using tablets to drive common Photoshop workflows - Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-09-01-whats-wrong-with-itunes/ Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:26:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-09-01-whats-wrong-with-itunes/ Recently I've tweeted a couple of times about wanting to see iTunes killed off, and both times I've received replies asking why. It's not possible to explain what's wrong with iTunes in 140 characters so I've moved it here. Apple mostly follow the Unix philosophy - write programs that do one thing and do it well. If you look at Mail, Address Book and iCal they all have one primary use case, and they interoperate perfectly. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-07-22-dear-nokia/ Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:50:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-07-22-dear-nokia/ I told you so. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-04-09-predictions/ Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:58:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-04-09-predictions/ #1 Within a year Adobe will have released some software geared towards authoring HTML5 / Canvas animation. #2 It will have a terrible, buggy interface that makes you want to kill. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-04-01-deleting-unwanted-calendars-from-the-iphone/ Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:12:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-04-01-deleting-unwanted-calendars-from-the-iphone/ For future reference, this is a royal pain in the arse. Solution here. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-03-30-scotch-egg-navigation/ Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:07:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-03-30-scotch-egg-navigation/ While working on a project with Richard Amos about a year ago we were pondering the static linear nature of breadcrumbs and wondering why they should always be so. The breadcrumb serves two purposes; firstly it gives users a sense of where they are in a site’s structure, helping them to never feel lost or disoriented. Which leads to the second purpose, to always provide them with a path home. The first of these is done entirely visually, you don’t need to click on the breadcrumb or interact with it in any way in order to help orient yourself. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-03-05-stupid-changes-in-snow-leopard-2/ Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:11:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-03-05-stupid-changes-in-snow-leopard-2/ The F8 play/pause media key on the keyboard now launches iTunes and starts playing music, meaning you can’t use this key to play and pause music in any other application that you might want to use. Stupid. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-03-03-stupid-changes-in-snow-leopard-1/ Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:15:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-03-03-stupid-changes-in-snow-leopard-1/ Clicking on the volume control in the menubar, I now have to move my mouse down so that the pointer is over the slider in order to be able to use the mouse’s scrollwheel to change the volume. In Leopard I could click and then scroll without having to move the mouse. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-02-02-multitasking-on-the-ipad/ Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:59:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-02-02-multitasking-on-the-ipad/ My friend Ben hit the nail on the head. …the majority of iPhone/iPad/mobile users probably don’t even know what “multitasking” is. They can probably only think about the one application they’re running at that very moment. Multitasking to these people would mean running out of processor power and memory, not realising it’s because they have 3 apps churning away doing their thing and only noticing the impact to the experience of the one app they’re focussing on right then. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-01-26-toggling-layers-in-omnigraffle/ Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:38:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-01-26-toggling-layers-in-omnigraffle/ Sometimes I need to output PDFs of a wireframe produced in OmniGraffle in two versions, one with annotations and one without. Luckily I habitually put all annotations on their own layer, so all that’s needed is a simple AppleScript to tell OmniGraffle to toggle the printable and visible nature of every layer named “Annotation”. A bit of googling turned up this forum post which does most of the work, I just needed to add in the printable property. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-01-07-the-apple-tablet-prediction-game/ Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:52:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2010-01-07-the-apple-tablet-prediction-game/ Feel free to come back here in a couple of weeks and tell me I was wrong, but my gut instinct on this whole tablet thing is that the speculation so far mostly ignores one key ingredient, and that is that Apple will be wanting to completely change the game in some area or other. That area isn’t going to be tablet computing as the only people who bought a tablet PC in the last 8 years were sales reps. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-12-02-the-future-of-nokia/ Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:41:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-12-02-the-future-of-nokia/ Here’s an interesting article from Michael Gartenberg about the future of Nokia. He touches on some of the things that I talked about in a previous post but completely misses out the experience of using a modern Nokia phone which I still believe is their biggest failing. There’s no point in producing great hardware if the actual experience of using that hardware is poor due to creaky operating systems. Just look at HTC’s Windows Mobile phones. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-12-02-video-post/ Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:41:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-12-02-video-post/ I love BERG https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-11-09-camel-mouse/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:01:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-11-09-camel-mouse/ If you ever wondered what a computer mouse designed by committee might look like, wonder no longer, for the people at OpenOffice seem to have done just that. Behold: the 18 button OpenOffice Mouse. It would appear that in designing this mouse two key factors have been completely ignored: Users also have a keyboard Users also have a screen Some choice quotes from the press release... "You can do far more with this mouse than most people are likely to realize at first," https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-11-03-nickr/ Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:47:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-11-03-nickr/ You may have noticed that Flickr’s new face tagging feature has broken the ability to drag your own photos off a Flickr page to your desktop, or even to right click and save an image. Never fear, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar and hit it when you need to get at your Flickr photo. Remember kids, only use this on your own photos. Stealing other people’s pictures is strongly discouraged. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-10-27-breaking-windows/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:43:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-10-27-breaking-windows/ Talking of Windows being shit, every time I see this advert on TV I can’t help but marvel at the jerky window movement as this guy drags his windows to the edges of the screen. a) Why is Microsoft still incapable of making an OS where window dragging happens at more than 3 frames per second? b) Why did the ad agency that made this shitfest not simply animate the window dragging sequence to try to hide the lag? https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-10-26-mobile-metrics/ Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:13:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-10-26-mobile-metrics/ AdMob have announced their Mobile Metrics report [PDF] for 2009 and it makes for some pretty interesting reading. The unstoppable rise of the iPhone OS is to be expected, but it’s nice to see this graph showing change over the last 6 months shows the 3 innovative operating systems all on the rise and everyone else in decline. Image credit to AdMob of course A couple of points worth noting… the fact that Windows Mobile’s share has now reached a level with Palm’s webOS and given their current trajectories is actually probably already behind. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-10-16-dropzone/ Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:57:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-10-16-dropzone/ Dropzone is really nice. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-09-14-sony-heart/ Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:21:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-09-14-sony-heart/ This giant pulsating lump of plastic appears as a stinger every time ITV football goes to a break. Given Sony’s history of releasing pointless crap that nobody wants, I wonder how many people think this thing is available right now from Dixons. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-09-10-itunes-uiwtf/ Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:07:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-09-10-itunes-uiwtf/ With every release the iTunes UI seems to get worse. This morning I attempted the seemingly simple task of copying a video from my Mac to my iPhone. Firstly, I need to drag the video to iTunes which then creates a duplicate copy of the video on my hard drive for no apparent reason. The video then shows up in iTunes, so I attempt to click and drag it to my iPhone. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-09-09-pixelmator-15-released/ Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:02:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-09-09-pixelmator-15-released/ And it looks like the best update yet. Finally Pixelmator has all the tools you’ll need to use it for web work, including slicing, export for web and an info panel (of sorts). Bye bye Photoshop. I never have to look at your stupid clunky custom interface again. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-08-26-convert-design-evolution-video/ Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:39:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-08-26-convert-design-evolution-video/ Really interesting video charting the design evolution of the iPhone app Convert by tap tap tap. Lovely to see the iterations gone through and the design decisions being made along the way. Especially interesting is how much more usable this ends up than the pretty but woeful ConvertBot. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-07-20-sxsw-follow-up/ Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:34:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-07-20-sxsw-follow-up/ A little late posting this I know, but as a quick follow up to our panel at SXSW I'd like to thank everyone who came along and particularly the other panellists for some amazing insights and our superb moderator Liz for all her hard work. It was standing room only in our room with people being turned away at the door so the subject must still be a big issue for a lot of people. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-06-29-free-ux-tip/ Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:52:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-06-29-free-ux-tip/ Testing out Linkup.com’s new service I got a slightly unexpected error message; “We couldn’t understand the location london that you provided.” While I don’t mind that it didn’t understand the word London, it is a shame that it doesn’t offer the user any options that may make their search work. Here it should be trying to help the user, rather than simply telling them that it doesn’t understand. “Did you mean…” followed by a list of linked words similar to the search term helps to catch misspellings. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-04-16-eyetv-and-turbo264/ Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:04:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-04-16-eyetv-and-turbo264/ Two products from Elgato, EyeTV lets you use your Mac as a PVR and Turbo264 massively speeds up video encoding to h.264. You’d expect them to work together beautifully but this is what I see every time I ask EyeTV to export a recording through Turbo264. The last operation could not be completed because an error of type -536870176 occurred. Such a shame that they can’t seem to make two of their own products work together. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-03-24-typinator-vs-textexpander/ Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:30:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-03-24-typinator-vs-textexpander/ Quick fight out between two applications that do essentially the same thing, which is expand text snippets to become something else: Round 1 - Does it do what it’s supposed to do? I bought TextExpander to do one thing, correct my typos. I have a chronic habit of typing semicolons where there should be apostrophes. Words like “don;t” and “can;t”. I set this up in TextExpander, set off writing an email and it failed to catch a single one of my typos. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-03-04-sxsw-2009/ Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:48:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-03-04-sxsw-2009/ Just a heads up to let you know that I’m talking on a panel at SXSW again this year, this time on the subject of “Designers and Developers: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”. It’s a good question and a great set of panellists, we’ll probably be running some kind of agony clinic, so if you’ve got a war raging in your studio at the moment and want some help with the peace process feel free to come and ask us questions. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-02-26-firefox-bad-safari-badder/ Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:03:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-02-26-firefox-bad-safari-badder/ John Gruber accuses Firefox of being a "Bad Mac App"... It looks like you can customize menu key shortcuts using the Keyboard Shortcuts panel in System Prefs, but the custom bindings don't work, and the factory shortcuts continue to apply, even though they no longer appear in the menu bar. He's obviously never tried to do the same thing in Safari, where though the custom binding do work, the factory shortcuts also continue to apply, even though they no longer appear in the menu bar. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-01-26-tagging-email-revisited/ Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:57:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2009-01-26-tagging-email-revisited/ I’ve been using InDev’s MailTags for a while now but sadly this isn’t the panacea that I’d hoped. It seems that it occasionally deletes messages without your consent and without telling you. Obviously this is not ideal, especially as it happened to me yesterday when I tagged an email with the words “flight”, “details”, “receipt” and “important”. And when I say it deletes messages, I don’t mean it moves them to the trash, I mean the message is gone. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-12-11-photo-post/ Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:13:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-12-11-photo-post/ Worst. Logo. Ever. And still no support for OpenDocument, a ratified ISO standard since 2006, but proudly supporting Word's de facto .doc format and still using another new proprietary format? Shame on you Apple. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-12-11-remember-when-you-said-youd-never-buy-a-renault/ Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:13:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-12-11-remember-when-you-said-youd-never-buy-a-renault/ Well, I don't remember saying that, but if you're sure that I did then OK. I wonder why they think I said that, maybe everyone says it. Why would everyone say that? Maybe Renaults are poorly made or something. Maybe Renaults are so badly made that they explode killing the occupants when involved in minor accidents. Or maybe Renault is a really racist company and Renault hates all black people. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-12-10-channel-4-caused-the-recession/ Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:28:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-12-10-channel-4-caused-the-recession/ Dear Channel 4, You are responsible for the recession. If it wasn’t for your constant barrage of shit like Property Ladder, Location Location Location, Relocation Relocation, The Price Of Property, A Place In The Sun and the ridiculously titled A Place In The Sun: Home or Away?, then the banks wouldn’t have been handing out mortgages to any dribbling, money grabbing, mouth breathing, wannabe property tycoon that can hold a paintbrush in one hand and a TV remote in the other. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-24-link-post/ Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:55:35 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-24-link-post/ http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/look/at-home-with-will-wright-creator-of-spore-simcity-the-new-york-times-112308-070413 open https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-04-macbook-hard-drive-replacement-tip/ Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:19:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-04-macbook-hard-drive-replacement-tip/ If you try to restore from Time Machine after a hard drive switch, Time Machine won’t see your new drive after you’ve formatted it until you restart. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-04-photo-post/ Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:19:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-04-photo-post/ EPIC WIN! From here with thanks to the Newseum too. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-04-video-post/ Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:19:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-11-04-video-post/ In your face John McCain! From adam-buxton.co.uk https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-23-tate-modernist/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:55:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-23-tate-modernist/ Tate Modernist Originally uploaded by eviltwin https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-17-link-post/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:07:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-17-link-post/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7617100.stm "Mr Claydon turned back to the monitor, then became aware that a prawn was on the chin of the patient. " "We find proved that Mr Greedy took and ate a stick of celery" This, is poetry. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-17-drm-free-music/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:19:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-17-drm-free-music/ 7 Digital announces they have all four majors on board for high quality, DRM-free, MP3 downloads. Good news. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-12-photo-post/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:10:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-12-photo-post/ My conference call earlier. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-12-poppy/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:10:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-12-poppy/ Oh by the way, I helped make a small person. Say hello to Poppy Olivia Beaumont. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-12-chyrp/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:16:30 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-12-chyrp/ I’ve just switched site this over to Chyrp, it seems a lot more suited to what I use this site for. In about a year I’ll probably get around to re-skinning it. It means that all the comments from previous posts are lost I’m afraid. Oh well. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-10-new-ipod-nano/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:16:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-09-10-new-ipod-nano/ The Nano lives in the price sweet spot that makes it an affordable xmas or birthday present, I’d guess Apple shift an awful lot more of them than any other iPod in the line. So yesterday Apple held a special event named Let’s Rock at which they announced new iPod Nanos and some crappy Genius feature (a poor man’s last.fm) which has been added to iTunes. Now, ignoring how saddened I am at the seeming demise of the larger capacity iPod Classics, it’s amazing that Apple thinks this warrants an event. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-08-05-at-the-end-of-the-day/ Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:31:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-08-05-at-the-end-of-the-day/ https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-07-25-adobe-updater/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:10:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-07-25-adobe-updater/ What a terrible piece of software. I’m not alone in thinking this. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-07-21-iphone-camera-tricks/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:30:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-07-21-iphone-camera-tricks/ Nice article on Wired. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-06-08-solving-tag-pollution/ Sun, 08 Jun 2008 07:28:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2008-06-08-solving-tag-pollution/ Taxonomy has a big advantage over folksonomy, it’s immutable and therefore prone to fewer errors. But folksonomy has a big advantage over taxonomy, it’s personal and flexible and therefore has context for the user. This is an attempt to mate the two systems producing an offspring with the best genes of each. Contextualizing Tags If we analyze the tags associated with a piece of content we can start to categorize them depending on their context. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-12-01-cat-in-a-box/ Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:42:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-12-01-cat-in-a-box/ cat in a box It's a cat on a cat in a box. Awesome. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-08-21-seashore-open-source-os-x-image-editor/ Mon, 21 Aug 2006 07:21:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-08-21-seashore-open-source-os-x-image-editor/ I recently clean re-installed OS X on my creaky old first generation TiBook and have since been on a mini mission to restock the applications folder using open source alternatives to the professional apps on my other Mac. The main benefit to this is that open source apps are so often considerably less resource hungry than their pro counterparts, meaning that the laptop that seemed to be beyond it’s life span is actually still perfectly usable. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-06-13-patrick-obrien-foundation/ Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:23:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-06-13-patrick-obrien-foundation/ Even if you’ve never come across the work of Patrick O’Brien through transfatty.com please take some time to read the story over at patrickobrienfoundation.org and maybe donate some money towards a worthy cause. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-04-10-tagging-email/ Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:08:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-04-10-tagging-email/ The disorganised nature of email has been bugging me a little recently and even more so the poor tools we currently have at our disposal to try to organise it ourselves. Sure, smart folders in Apple’s Mail.app and labels in Thunderbird go a tiny way to helping but neither of these actually solves the core issue as I see it. Scenario 1: Suppose I have a 20 message conversation about fixing a bug, midway through that conversation the focus of what bug is being worked on, what file is being worked on or even what project is being worked on takes a shift, all of a sudden the search and organise features available to me don’t cut it as they’re now infected with meta-noise. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-03-15-when-interface-design-attacks/ Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:11:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2006-03-15-when-interface-design-attacks/ A friend pointed me in the direction of this blog entry as a demonstration that Microsoft’s UI designers are moving in the right direction. To a point I agree, it certainly looks nicer than Windows FP even if we ignore the worrying similarities to a deviantArt hax0r’s Mac skin for Windows. What’s actually bothering me here though is the usability. This interface uses what I call “secret tabs”, notice the titles of the un-selected tabs just floating in mid air with no indication as to what they actually are. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-10-13-ehub-interview/ Thu, 13 Oct 2005 00:58:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-10-13-ehub-interview/ I’ve been honoured with being interviewed by eHub about fileNice. Check it out here, and check out the other interviews here. In other news, Preloaded made it into the NMA most respected list for the fourth year in a row, this year reaching the dizzy heights of 5th. Yep, we’re the fifth most respected interactive agency in the UK. Go us! Oh, and might as well throw this one in… Google Reader, a Google RSS reader. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-09-13-flash-8/ Tue, 13 Sep 2005 07:12:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-09-13-flash-8/ It's that time of year again, time to list what Macromedia have cocked up with this years Flash release. So, my trial has lasted less than a day with Flash 8 before having to revert to MX04 (which I hate). Last year's full on showstopper bug in the release version was the fact that pinning your scripts meant you would lose a whole days work when Flash failed to save the changes. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-06-14-tiny-finder/ Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:14:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-06-14-tiny-finder/ If immitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I’m flattered. Tiny Finder is a Perl/CGI fileNice clone, so if you’ve not got PHP on your system it could be worth keeping an eye on. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-05-10-best-email-ever/ Tue, 10 May 2005 03:18:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-05-10-best-email-ever/ Just got this… date: 5/10/2005 name: cat.mpeg email: fuckyouall@eviltwin.cock message: this is the wurst commercial ever you fuckers get a life stupid fockers a hope your next life will be a cat wois is a this stupid commercial. your english brains a realy fucked up ass fockers ps:fuck your mother https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-05-09-offf-to-barcelona/ Mon, 09 May 2005 08:40:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-05-09-offf-to-barcelona/ I’m off to Barcelona this week to talk (along with two of the other Preloaded people) at OFFF about the Preloaded process of making nice things. Come over and say hi if you see me there. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-05-05-uk-election/ Thu, 05 May 2005 10:30:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-05-05-uk-election/ Got a nice surprise when I went to vote this evening and discovered that my local Lib Dem candidate is an old mate from Leeds. Good luck tonight James. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-04-22-creative-review/ Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:22:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-04-22-creative-review/ Our copy of the Creative Review Annual arrived today complete with the Spooks games in it. Hooray! https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-04-13-more-awards-news/ Wed, 13 Apr 2005 01:54:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-04-13-more-awards-news/ Last year our work for Spooks won pretty much everything going. This year it seems incapable of winning anything despite being twice the size and twice as good. The latest award we didn’t win was at FlashForward. Coming up, expect to see it not win a Webby, the first nomination Preloaded have had in there. Also expect to see it not win an NMA effectiveness award despite it being the second most registered for section on the BBC after CelebDAC and therefore the most registered for that doesn’t have it’s own TV show dedicated to the website. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-04-11-hitchhikers-guide-movie/ Mon, 11 Apr 2005 04:54:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-04-11-hitchhikers-guide-movie/ Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a screening of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie thanks to Preloaded having worked with Nick and Garth before and being involved in some of the online promotional material. So, with possible biases owned up to, I’d just like to say it’s fantastic. The script is sharp and funny, the plot and direction pacey, the performances from the cast excellent. There’s definitely one slating review of it floating around the web at the moment which in my opinion isn’t even worth reading. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-03-17-awards-update/ Thu, 17 Mar 2005 02:26:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-03-17-awards-update/ We won nothing! This is quite an unusual feeling for us. Oh well, there’s more coming up. We’ve got some nominations at Flash in the Can and hopefully we’ll get a few for Flash Forward too. So what did we lose out on the Bafta to I hear you ask? Well, it was a Flash port of a 25 year old BBC Micro text adventure game. I’ll say no more. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-02-03-awards/ Thu, 03 Feb 2005 01:07:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2005-02-03-awards/ Firstly some slightly late news, we’ve been nominated for an Interactive Bafta for Spooks 3. The ceremony takes place some time in March I think. Also on the awards front, Preloaded has picked up no less than 3 nominations for SXSW. Viral game SinkYaDrink in the Amusement category, the promo we made for Evil Nine’s release Crooked is in the Music category and of course, Spooks 3 is there, this time in Technical Achievement. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2004-11-11-recent-work/ Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:54:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2004-11-11-recent-work/ Long time no post. Well, it’s because I’ve been busy. We’ve completed the new Spooks games for the BBC - note you can still play all of last years games inside the swanky new interface. You can also get some inside info by checking out the features on the project in both Digit magazine and Computer Arts magazine. The Get Writing project, also for the Beeb, picked up an award from the Royal Television Society who described it as “one of the most inspiring & well planned educational campaigns for many years”. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2004-09-21-flickr/ Tue, 21 Sep 2004 05:31:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2004-09-21-flickr/ Never mind that everyone else in the world has already told you about it, go try out Flickr.com - really well thought out picture organising and sharing with loads of great features. You can check out my Flickr pics here. https://andybeaumont.com/post/2004-06-08-preloaded-party/ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 09:25:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/post/2004-06-08-preloaded-party/ Much fun was had, much free vodka was drunk, much people were drunk. Preloaded celebrated a bunch of stuff (including a new Preloaded site) by chucking a party, see pics here. https://andybeaumont.com/page/instapapered/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/page/instapapered/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-t-bone-burnett-sxsw-0313-story.html https://theoutline.com/post/6776/john-delorean-rise-and-fall-big-money-the-fbi-celebrities-and-cocaine http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/jamison-bachman-worst-roommate-ever.html https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-09/has-anyone-seen-the-president http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-18/the-fall-of-travis-kalanick-was-a-lot-weirder-and-darker-than-you-thought https://medium.com/@JPRobinson/the-mystery-of-jesus-the-naked-hippie-dancer-9822c0da8765 http://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/15/how-trump-walked-into-putins-web-luke https://www.gq.com/story/bill-browder-putin-enemy-number-1 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-look-stupid-not-strong-and-stable-theresa-may-said-after-the-shock-general-election-result-jeremy-corbyn-10-downing-street-gv0z0f5x8 http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/06/10/britain-the-end-of-a-fantasy/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/magazine/mike-judge-the-bard-of-suck.html http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/adam-curtis-on-the-dangers-of-self-expression/ http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/aaron-sorkin-donald-trump-president-letter-daughter https://hbr.org/2016/10/penn-jillette http://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/trump-boris-i-wouldn-t-write-thick-it-now-politics-already-feels-fictional http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all https://read.atavist.com/a-thousand-pounds-of-dynamite http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n13/andrew-ohagan/the-satoshi-affair http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/gay-talese-the-voyeurs-motel http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/magazine/the-minecraft-generation.html?nytmobile=0 http://www.gq.com/story/lsd-life-saving-drug http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/doing-a-ted-talk-the-full-story.html https://medium.com/backchannel/how-steve-jobs-fleeced-carly-fiorina-79d1380663de http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire http://www.thenation.com/article/i-was-there-kurt-vonnegut/ http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-mob-technology-consultants-help-drug-traffickers/ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html http://blog.ashleynh.me/on-heroes/ http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/feb/11/-sp-mystery-of-mingering-mike-the-soul-legend-who-never-existed-jon-ronson https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/16/latest-fbi-boast-disrupting-terror-u-s-plot-deserves-scrutiny-skepticism/ https://medium.com/@nikkidurkin99/my-startup-failed-and-this-is-what-it-feels-like-c5d64b3ae96b http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201407 http://www.readability.com/m?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffivethirtyeight.com%2Ffeatures%2Flionel-messi-is-impossible%2F http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diamonds?currentPage=all http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/01/01/Software-in-2014 http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-and-damned http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/25/tory-nightmare-dont-say-werent-warned?cat=commentisfree&type=article http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-who-broke-atlantic-city/8900/2/?single_page=true http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2000/09/opium-dens-200009.print http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet-the-men-who-spy-on-women-through-their-webcams/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/alfred-anaya/all/&src=longreads http://jonnegroni.com/2013/07/11/the-pixar-theory/ http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-lavabit-edward-snowden-email-service-melted-down.html http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/08/messi_and_neymar_will_the_world_s_greatest_player_and_barcelona_s_new_prodigy.html http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2013/07/29/130729sh_shouts_hodgman http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/dont-take-your-vitamins.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1 http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/james-somers-web-developer-money/ http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/48/pendle.php http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/why-doctors-cant-give-lsd-but-should?single-page-view=true http://johnpilger.com/articles/dance-on-thatcher-s-grave-but-remember-there-has-been-a-coup-in-britain http://zachtratar.com/tesla.html#.UXSBDbXvvRx http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19558804 http://longform.org/stories/122 http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/20/stephen-lawrence-20-years-on http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/grad-student-who-shook-global-austerity-movement.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/02/features/dangerous/viewall http://nymag.com/nymag/features/3649/ http://www.curiousjuice.com/blog-0/bid/89407/How-much-salary-is-enough-Apparently-75-000-year http://betting.betfair.com/football/lukethelayman/wycombes-youngsters-put-on-a-show-but-what-will-become-of-them-160113-300.html http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1270036.ece http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/01/14/the-panasonic-toughpad-press-conference/ https://andybeaumont.com/page/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://andybeaumont.com/page/about/ I’m CTO and co-founder of Hactar, a digital studio working primarily with non-profits, social enterprises, charities and the arts. With twenty years experience of working in every corner of the digital industry, I’ve written books, talked at conferences around the world and won most of the top awards including BAFTA, BIMA, SXSWi, Cannes Lion, W3, RTS, Eurobest, NMA and Campaign as well as an Emmy nomination. I’m a SXSW Advisory Board member and occasional BIMA judge.