March 2006 Archives (28 posts)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Last night I had a chance to see V for Vendetta (2005) — the latest film from the Wachowski brothers. I read a few reviews that complained about the amount of talking Hugo Weaving’s character (V) does throughout the film. Forget what the critics have to say. This is a solid movie.
If you tire of the dialogue, which I happened to find interesting, then worry not because a lot of stuff gets blown up. You’ll think that you’re watching a Renny Harlin film for a few scenes. There are a couple of scenes with interesting Matrix-like effects as well that will make you say, “cool!”
The script takes a huge slap at the current Bush administration and the US media (mostly the Fox news channel I suspect). I found it quite entertaining. The film also gets bonus for a short sequence that pays homage to the Benny Hill Show.
I loved the way in which the film arrives at it futuristic setting in the UK — totalitarian society, fascist leader played by John “Hitler” Hurt, corrupt governemt etc. Casting Hurt in his role is genius when you consider his lead role in Nineteen Eight Four (1984).
Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving and Stephen Rea are excellent in their roles. Despite not being able to see Weaving’s face for the entire film I thought his performance worked well and added to the mystery of his character.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 4:22 PM | Comments (0)
Toronto Traffic
If you live in Toronto then you’ll want to check this site before you leave the house or office to get on one of the major highways in the GTA. Using a Google Map interface it will show you where traffic is moving slowly or stopped completely. The map is updated every 120 seconds.
Posted in Web at 9:53 AM | Comments (2)
50 million lines of code
Today The New York Times asked the question, Windows Is So Slow, but Why? My copy of Windows XP is appallingly slow on my Dell. I’m using a clean install of Windows XP but it still takes forever to launch Internet Explorer or do anything on the system. Yes, I keep it up to date with all of the latest security patches and upgrades. No, i don’t have viruses, adware and spyware bogging things down.
Considering that Vista has “50 million lines of code” and is “more than 40 percent larger than Windows XP”, I’ll have to purchase another Dell just to run it. Whenever it gets released.
It’s been 5 years since Microsoft upgraded its operating system and the next version, Vista keeps getting delayed. How is this possible with all of the brilliant engineers that Microsoft has at their disposal? The Times article says,
In those five years, Apple Computer has turned out four new versions of its Macintosh operating system, beating Microsoft to market with features that will be in Vista, like desktop search, advanced 3-D graphics and “widgets,” an array of small, single-purpose programs like news tickers, traffic reports and weather maps.
It turns out that Windows is just too big. Mac OS X, Linux and Google really do pose a threat to Microsoft, the longer it takes them to release Vista. As Microsoft continues to patch its code and add on to the beast called Windows, Apple is on their third Macintosh operating system (all of them backward compatible). Each new version continues to innovate (and inspire future versions of Windows).
Remember Longhorn? It was a previous version of Windows that Microsoft scrapped in favour of Vista. They should scrap Vista and start from scratch. Why? 50 million lines of code would be my first reason. That must be a nightmare for bug fixes and security vulnerabilities. Stay tuned.
Posted in Technology at 9:18 PM | Comments (2)
A History of Violence (2005)
I finally had a chance to watch this (DVD) on the weekend and I felt it lived up to all of the hype. One of the best films of the year? Sure. Why not.
I’m not a David Cronenberg fan, but this is easily his most likeable/accessible/mainstream film to date. It’s a little predictable at times but a solid film. Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello are great but Ed Harris and William Hurt as wise guys? Come on!
Ed Harris is great at being creepy and didn’t need makeup to achieve that. Is he believable as a mobster from Philly? Not a chance.
Then there is William Hurt. His accent was terrible and he was nominated for best supporting actor role? I must have missed something. Maybe I’ve been watching The Soprano’s for too long.
It was interesting to see how Cronenberg used Toronto, King City, Port Perry and Millbrook, Ontario for various American locations. There are a lot of great extras on the DVD that you’ll appreciate if you’re curious about the filmmaking process..
I wasn’t surprised to find out that Cronenberg comes to the set without any storyboards or notes for his actors, director of photography or sound crew. It was interesting to see his process for developing a scene — working collaboratively with the crew and rehearsing until he feels ready to film. Obviously it works for him.
There is also an interesting featurette on makeup and special effects. If you’re wondering how Viggo Mortenson was able to smash an actor’s nose into his skull then this is for you.
Lastly, there is an interesting comparison between the international and American versions of the film. It seems that the MPAA doesn’t like squirting blood, even if it is only shown for a quarter of a second. Blink and you won’t be able to tell the differences between the two versions but you will conclude that the MPAA is a complete waste of time.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:03 PM | Comments (1)
32GB Flash drives coming soon
Good bye hard-disk drives. Samsung launched a 32GB Flash-based drive.
This is big deal because Flash drives consume a fraction of the power of regular hard-disks. They’re also a lot faster than regular hard-disks. Because they don’t have any moving parts you can bang them around with worry — great for portable devices.
I can remember paying $1,000 for a 1 GB external hard disk 10 years ago. Amazing.
Posted in Technology at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)
Sammy!
Spring has sprung and so has Lisa.
Congratulations to Andy and Lisa on the birth of their son—Samuel Xavier Kemp. I can’t decide on whether I’ll call him Sam X or Sammy. Either way, I’m sure it will drive Andy nuts.
Posted in Personal at 10:52 AM | Comments (1)
The Sopranos and House
I recently watched the season premiere of The Sopranos in HD and all I can say is “wow!”
It’s been a long wait for season 6 and the first episode was worth the wait. The writing and the acting on this show is so finely tuned now that each episode is like watching a four star movie. And to think I resisted watching for the first four seasons. What was I thinking?
The HBO microsite for the The Sopranos has a great feature called Sopranos Maps. It uses Google Maps to show you key locations from Season 5. Each location has a video clip and episode synopsis. Brilliant!
Another show that I can’t get enough of these days is House on Fox. This is another show I resisted and had no interest in whatsoever. A friend of mine in Vancouver forced me to watch an episode and now I’m hooked. I downloaded the first 10 episodes of Season 2 (via BitTorents) and can’t get enough of this show.
The writing is clever and quite funny. Hugh Laurie is perfect in the role of Dr. Gregory House. The special effects are pretty amazing in some episodes. Should I continue or are you going to tune on March 28 for the next episode?
Posted in Television at 5:55 PM | Comments (6)
JointXL
I just finished a quick redesign of a homepage for JointXL. They make a natural joint supplement that reduces pain and inflammation.
If you’re an athlete or in your prime, and your knee’s aren’t what they used to be then you might want to give JointXL a try.
Posted in JAK MEDIA at 5:33 PM | Comments (0)
Finding the latest story
Where do you find breaking news, interesting blog entries or the latest web video that everyone is talking about?
I get three newspapers delivered to my door in the morning (they’re practically giving away newspaper subscriptions these days). The problem is that the news is always old by the time I read it. Editorial content and local news is what keeps me reading for the most part.
Yahoo News and the New York Times are my favourite online stops when I want to know what is going on in the world right now.
I never became a fan of newsreaders and RSS feeds. I still like to visit my favourite sites to see if there is new content. I know it’s old school and inefficient but it’s what I prefer at the moment.
Lately I’ve been scouring digg.com and its competitors for interesting stories and links to some fabulous resources on web development and design. Wired News had an interesting story on some of the latest news sites.
From this story I came across a few sites such as reddit, Megite, tech. memeorandum, TailRank that have the latest online content creating a buzz.
Posted in Web at 5:00 PM | Comments (3)
Video review of iPod Hi-Fi Speaker
PC Magazine has a nice video review of the new iPod Hi-Fi Speaker. Using Flash, the video streams quite nicely and played back flawlessly on my clunky old Macintosh G4 at home.
At 480x360 pixels you get a fairly detailed view of how the various iPods plug into the speaker. Nicely done Jim Louderback. I’m looking forward to more video reviews like this.
Posted in Technology at 8:34 PM | Comments (0)
Amazing sand storm photos
If you’re like me, you’ve probably only seen a sand storm in a Hollywood film. A blog called Pruned has some amazing photos of a sand storm and a few other links to some interesting photos.
Cool stuff or should I say “great distractions” to help you procrastinate take a break from your mountain of work.
Posted in Photography at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)
HD DVD Rentals?
NetFlix is now letting members change their account preferences to accept HD DVD rentals for when Blu-ray discs become available, later this year. As far as I know, Zip.ca doesn’t let you do this. yet.
Any early adopters out there that are planning to invest in a Blu-ray DVD player (besides my father) when they come out? I think it will be several years before I bother with a new format (or when the price drops to $200 per player).
Posted in Technology at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
More Geek Links
Listible.com has a useful list of 138 online tools, generators and checkers. If you’re a web developer then you’ll find many of these links to be of interest.
dhtmlgoodies.com has a nice library of DHTML and AJAX code that you can use in your own websites.
Posted in Web Development at 9:35 PM | Comments (0)
The Logos of Web 2.0
The FontShop has a great blog called FontFeed. If you’re a designer then you’ll want to bookmark this site.
Their latest entry The Logos of Web 2.0, takes a look at fonts used in some of the so-called Web 2.0 sites and brands. Chunky text combined with orange, green and blue colours are the latest trend.
Posted in Web Design at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Screenshots of Office 2007
Jensen Harris’ blog has quite a few screenshots of the upcoming Office 2007 user interface. There are also a few screenshots at Microsoft’s website.
I don’t know. I’m not crazy about the design at all. I just find that it looks clunky. It’s not really fair to judge an interface without actually using it but when I look at these screenshots I feel uninspired. What do the rest of you think?
Posted in Design at 8:40 PM | Comments (2)
TuneCenter
Just when you thought you had everything that you could possibly need for you iPod, along comes TuneCenter from Griffin Technology. This “home media center for iPod” comes with a 14 button remote.
TuneCenter looks like an iPod version of Apple’s Front Row software for it’s Macintosh computers. The living room is becoming the next battleground for Apple, Microsoft and Sony.
Posted in Apple and Technology at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
Adobe Creative Suite in 2006
Think Secret is reporting that Adobe is trying to release Adobe Creative Suite 3 by the end of this year on Apple’s new Intel-based computers. Previous reports said that Adobe Photoshop wouldn’t be ready until some time in 2007 which would prevent a lot of design professionals from upgrading to a new Macintosh system.
Some of the rumoured features in Adobe Photoshop CS3 sound interesting—Live Filters, non-destructive editing, Camera RAW 4 (huh?) and Rotating Canvas. More info here.
Posted in OS X Software at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
33 ways to use your Mac in your home theatre
If you’re like me you have your home theatre in one room and your computer in another. I had no idea that there were so much software out there to integrate your Mac with your home theatre. Pure-mac.com has a list of 33 applications that you’ll want to check out.
Posted in Home Theatre and OS X Software at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)
Top Ten Most Welcome Movie Deaths
Stylus Magazine has a couple of morbid but interesting top ten lists:
Top Ten Most Welcome Movie Deaths
Top Ten Unexpected Movie Deaths
The rest of the site has some good movie and music reviews.
If you’re interested in the documentary film Why We Fight, there is a great review that doesn’t jump on the Jarecki bandwagon.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 5:27 PM | Comments (2)
Oscar 78
The Oscars seemed a bit dull last night. Jon Stewart never really seemed to click with the audience but there were plenty of moments to make the show worthwhile.
The Western movie mash-up was one of the highlights of the evening. A number of Western movie clips were cleverly edited together with a Brokeback theme. With all the of the re-edited movie trailers circulating the web, I thought this was brilliant.
The most exciting part of the night occurred when Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar for Best Song In A Film — It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp. The acceptance speech was hilarious and part of it was bleeped out. The audience finally came alive and Stewart got a good laugh when he said “I think it just got a little easier out here for a pimp.”
After winning the Oscar, Jordan “Juicy J” Houston of Three 6 Mafia had this to say,
I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stand still. I had to run somewhere. I started to run somewhere. People thought the police was probably chasing me somewhere.
My favourite line of the night came from Jon Stewart when he made the following observation.
For anyone keeping record, Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars. For Three 6 Mafia, one.
Posted in Movies at 11:46 AM | Comments (3)
Congrats Ronny P!
Yesterday, coach Ron Pike led Trinity Western University Spartans to their first ever men’s volleyball title. The final was on TSN yesterday afternoon. There is a full story about the win on the TSN website.
It’s always weird seeing someone you know on television. It was nice to see Ron rolling around on the floor with a bunch of guys because he won a championship instead of, never mind. Congratulations Ron!
Posted in News at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)
Souvlaki Salmon Fillets
Feeling hungry? I added a really simple recipe for Souvlaki Salmon Fillets in the Cooking section of the site. You don’t need a lot of fancy ingredients and it doesn’t take hours to make. Delicious!
Posted in Food at 1:16 PM | Comments (1)
Some OS X Tips
Here are a couple of OS X tips to improve performance on your Macs.
- Mac tune-up: 34 software speedups
- Top OS X tips
- Run the latest software update for some security patches
- Grab a Cocktail
Posted in OS X Software at 1:49 PM | Comments (0)
Pop Wuping
Pop Wuping is a blog about “modern stuff for a mobile lifestyle”.
You’ll absolutely love this site and drool if
- you are a creative professional
- collect really cool gadgets
- own a laptop or an iPod
Posted in Technology and Web at 9:34 PM | Comments (0)
Toy Story 2 Requiem
More movie trailer remixing. Toy Story 2 meets Requiem for a Dream. View trailer.
Posted in Motion Graphics and Movies at 9:40 AM | Comments (0)
Daniels Doodles update
Daniel’s Doodles has been added to the sidebar under the VIEWING section. Yesterday he did a drawing of Electro sporting a wicked ‘fro.
Posted in Web at 9:09 AM | Comments (1)
Why Vista Won’t Suck?
I took a look at all of the screenshots of the upcoming Windows Vista at ExtremeTech. The interface is looking more and more like Mac OS X (which launched in 2000)—aqua coloured buttons, chrome design, transparency, drop shadows etc.
Everything looks “clunky” as if it were patched together. It seems that Microsoft’s billions and five years of development can’t create an interface that has the cool design aesthetic found in nearly everything Apple creates. I find this baffling.
Maybe Vista won’t suck because of improved security, networking, performance and speech recognition. Are you excited yet?
The marketing department at Microsoft knows that most people don’t care about technical improvements. They’re expected in the release of a new OS. A stunning interface and incredible demos are going to compel people to upgrade to Vista.
I wonder why I can’t view the web page of new features in Windows Vista using my Apple web browser, Safari (it works fine in Firefox and IE 6). It could be that some of the new features have been available on Macs for quite some time.
Sleep
Sleep is a feature that has been available on Macs for at least 10 years. It is a new feature in Vista.
Windows Vista introduces a new power state called Sleep. In Windows XP, after you shut down your PC, it takes a long time to turn it back on… resuming use when your PC is in the Sleep state takes just 2-3 seconds.
Quick Search
This is called Spotlight in Mac OS X. It has been available for about a year now. The Quick Search box which is new in Vista has also been on OS X for quite some time.
Windows Vista Aero
Microsoft says, “Windows Vista Aero provides spectacular visual effects such as glass-like interface elements that you can see through.” This look has been called Aqua on OS X since 2000. I can’t blame Microsoft for wanting to copy it.
Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D
Another rip-off of an Apple technology called Exposé. This will be great for demos and provide some of the eye candy Microsoft needs in the OS.
Gadgets
Microsoft describes Gadgets as “mini-applications with a wide variety of possible uses.” Apple calls them Widgets and they were introduced into the Mac OS X a year ago.
By now you get the idea and this comparison is becoming tiresome.
Design and “eye-candy demos” sell products. Apple introduced a lot of really cool-looking features in the last version of the operating system. Many of these features were pretty useless but they did sell more OS upgrades.
Microsoft seems to be doing the same thing in hopes that people will upgrade to Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft there isn’t anything that is really new and innovative in Windows Vista.
Why isn’t Microsoft introducing their own innovative technologies or coming up with their own user interface that is unique? Anyone?
Posted in OS X Software at 11:55 AM | Comments (2)
Rogers is throttling Bittorrent traffic
I never thought I would be happy to say that I am a Bell Canada customer. No, I haven’t gone off my meds, but I just read that Rogers is starting to kill Bittorrent traffic on their network. I’m using Bell Sympatico and haven’t had any problems with bandwidth.
There is a discussion on Apple’s Support forums that Rogers’ attempts to kill Bittorrent traffic are preventing people from purchasing music on iTunes and listening to Podcasts! I can’t believe that Rogers would be so stupid. Oh, wait a second, that is why I switched back to Bell a few years ago.
Posted in News and Web at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
