Matthew Dear's latest long player, Black City. What's interesting is this third studio release is the introduction its newest label release format, totem. More than a mere limited edition, the totem is a proposal, an entreaty to listeners everywhere to reconsider our relationship to music in the digital era.
Our friends at HUF have made their own shoes... yes, I said that they made their own SHOES and there's a very good chance that you should get some for yourself or a loved one... like now, ktnx.
Finally I have made the second part of our photo reportage from Roskilde festival.
It was taken as panoramas with a pocket camera and should be stitched together. I have tried Hugin, Photoshop and Photosynth with Microsoft ICE.
I have published the result with Photosynth. It wasn't the best results - well both Hugin and Photoshop delivers better results with Photoshop being the best. But I decided to use Photosynth because it was easy and quick to produce and publish and the quality of the images was so good that it was worth making it all in Photoshop.
Here are the panoramas and synths: Roskile festival Photosynths
Back by popular demand, Justin and crew release Visual Response #01 for 2010 over at the Australian INfront Go vent from your client work, submissions aren't due til April 5th. >>
My first contributions were by proxy, and some may laugh it off as a small achievement, but saying "I write for Pixelsurgeon" for the past four years has been the proudest thing in my life. Being a reviewer and post junkie here got me jobs in the USA and Japan that wouldn't have had me on the premises otherwise, gave credibility that no blog ever has or will, and provided a simple but soul-saving focus on the darkest days.
I hope sincerely that if nothing else, the site is preserved for reference, a kind of bragging rights goto for those of us who consider Pixelsurgeon to be the reason newsfeeds are successful anywhere.
We will all miss PS. I have for one learned a lot from the links posted here, and the reviews of music I would never have found. But we understand... best to go out on top then fade away!
I'll join in with the collective backslapping and say a big thanks to jason, reena and Rich for making Pixelsurgeon happen in the first place. 'Twas an awesome place to hang out, met some good people through it, and had fun posting sporadically.
From now on we'll meet in dark, damp alleys and greet each other with a secret handshake.
It was a good run and I'm happy I got to be part of it. I think this is a wise and painless way to end it. I think PS has had its fair share of cowbell...
Yep we had some good times didn't we? We're sorry to see it go, but as Jason explained, it's definitely time. Well, unless someone can figure out how to make the days twice as long, and us part-cyborg anyway.
We'll take that as a no. Thanks for all your support over the years, both readers, contributors and pr folk alike.
To go with the bag o' rocks and the cold, dark water, may I offer this album as a score to the departure. It's the soundtrack to the first movie I reviewed for PS.
An impromptu and inventive exhibition that invites you into the exquisite illustrative worlds of FOUR influential Artists, Claire Scully, Erin Petson, Pomme Chan and Susie Wright. Check out four exhibition for more details.
Bit of shameless self promotion, mostlywanted has had a facelift and some new work added. Stop by and say hello.
After seven amazing years, Pixelsurgeon is shutting its doors and closing down.
Pixelsurgeon is an enormous time drain and thanks to an expanding family and helping to create new moving image company Wyld Stallyons, I simply cannot devote sufficient time to it. So rather than let it die a slow lingering death, I'm taking it to the canal in a bag of rocks.
This has been a tough decision, and one I've struggled with over the last couple of months. I'm sure many of you will be as heartbroken as we are.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our contributors past and present for their amazing work, and to you, our audience for stopping by to read our news, reviews and interviews.
Bluw Creative are an expanding design agency, located in Covent Garden, looking for a creative designer/graduate for an expenses paid internship. This could lead to a full time position, if you impress.
You will need all the basic software skills in Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver etc. Advantage if you are creative and technical.
Paintalicious is a blog/zine of exciting contemporary art. Painting, photography, sculpture and Illustration will be just a few of the media examined by Paintalicious. Whats there so far is great, make sure you stop by and have a look.
As some of our regular readers have guessed, yes it is true. Digital Web Magazine has ceased publication. For the reasons cited in Time To Change, it was clear to us that what we had was no longer working.
We called upon both our staff and readers for ideas on what we could change. We received a lot of good feedback. One thing that resonated with me was that out of all of the ideas that had the most potential to solving our current problems, none of them were about insignificant changes to what we have.
It doesn’t make sense to take what we have here and try to change it into something it is not. It makes more sense to simply start something else that is new. For this reason I feel that Digital Web Magazine will always be what it is; an online publication about the web industry.
So, today, I am sad to say that Digital Web Magazine has officially ceased publication. The site will remain in place with all of its articles hopefully far longer than their value is recognized.
I will continue to curate the site, maintaining it so it remains online and fixing broken links and typos. Most of my effort and time, just like the rest of the former staff, will be put into other projects, other websites and other publications.
I want to take a moment to personally thank each and every staff member, editor, designer, photographer, illustrator, information architect, database developer, web developer, web programmer, contributing writer, columnist and last but perhaps most important, each and every reader who ever read our publication. We couldn’t have made it this far without you. I genuinely mean that.
If you want to respond with your thanks and appreciation, feel free to leave a comment here, post to twitter, post on Facebook, or you can always email me directly. If you prefer to say something in person, find me and the rest of the staff at SXSW Interactive. Thanks again everyone! Last one out turns off the lights.
As 2009 comes to a close and we enter our annual winter hiatus I am proud to present our 500th article, Time To Change, written by yours truly. With every year that passes we look back at the year and all of the things we have accomplished and then we set goals for ourselves for the year to come. This article is not unlike that. Digital Web Magazine is about to undergo the most significant change in its ten-year history as a publication and we want your input. This is your chance to influence the future structure and focus of Digital Web. Please take a moment to read this week’s issue and weigh in with your thoughts. Thank you for a great year, and a magnificent past ten years.
After a great two years with the magazine, I’m afraid the time has come for me to step down as Editor-in-Chief here at Digital Web. It has been great fun and very rewarding, and I have met some fantastic people both online and in person, but I have decided that I want to spend more time next year on both personal projects and watching my children grow up. My thanks to Nick Finck for giving me this opportunity, and to Tiff, Walker, and the other staff for all their help — without our dedicated volunteers, the magazine would not be able to keep churning out such great content each week.
Keep an eye on this news feed for a special announcement from our founder, Nick Finck, on where Digital Web will be heading in 2009.
We at Digital Web Magazine want to say thanks to our readers and authors for their dedicated patronage. As some of you may know, today in the U.S. is Thanksgiving day. To celebrate and say thank you to our readers and contributors we are going to be giving away a gift certificate for free hosting and domain name (you pick it if its available) for one year at Media Temple.
All you have to do is comment on this blog post, tell us how you first found out about our publication and why you feel its different than the other sites out there. We’ll hand select the best answer. This doesn’t need to be a book in length, a simple paragraph or two will do. Make sure you include your name, email address, and URL otherwise we won’t know how to contact you to send you the gift card.
Digital Web is headed into our winter break-we take December off to gather our resources and review the year past. But before we hibernate, we have a holiday season present for our readers. It’s a bit of a departure, but we’re thrilled to have Chris Wright join us to ask a light-hearted question, Is The Web Really Helping Us Find New Music?.
Naturally, we have our own motives-this article represents an op-ed piece. It’s not a how-to, or new trick, and it’s definitely not an adventurous CSS idea-we’re thick-skinned around here, but the flamewars around our recent CSS pieces have been a new hurdle in the history of the magazine. So let’s all take a new outlook for the holidays and enjoy what we have.
We’d like to hear your reaction to op-ed-style pieces, too-please leave a comment in response to the article, and in response to its style. Have a happy winter holiday!
The folks over at Sitepoint are giving away a free PDF of their book, The Art & Science Of CSS (co-written by one-time Digital Web columnist and all-round nice guy, Jonathan Snook). All you have to do to bag a copy is follow them on Twitter — full details can be found on Twitaway.com.
We have a very interesting article this week from new contributor Steve Heffernan, who brings us RESTful CSS. Our last few CSS articles sparked quite a row in the comments, so I hope the same audience takes a long look at Steve’s proposals, even if web app languages like Ruby on Rails isn’t your day-to-day forte. CSS management is a growing issue as we make even greater advances in CSS techiques, JavaScript support and enhancement and rich interactions like web apps.
Digital Web is happy to bring you another quality “twofer“-a two-article issue to get you through November. First up is returning contributor Andrew Stevens who reviews the new book Website Optimization by Andrew King on O’Reilly-the nighthawk book as it were. King looks beyond code optimization and examines optimizing a website’s full web presense, from search results to SEO to website responsiveness.
Digital Web is happy to feature a chapter from Paul Boag’s new book Website Owners Manual, entitled Know Your Site. Paul Boag is a well-known podcaster and web guru, with a lengthy resume throughout Headscape and Boagworld. His new book is a primer for website owners, and poses excellent questions for both web geeks and owners alike.
In addition to Boagworld’s book, last week Digital Web asked a timely question of our readers, “Does politics matter to web professionals?“? Our readers weighed in over the week leading up to this evening’s historic election in the U.S. And we’re happy to publish the results here in our news blog-Your views on politics and web design.
Last week we asked you how politics affects the jobbing web designer, and many of you responded with your thoughts. It was gratifying to see that, in the main, our readers are politically aware and realize the effect that national politics can have on their day-to-day lives — but what specifically do web pros need to consider? Adam Conrad says:
Politics has yet to affect my day-to-day life finding a job, doing my work and making the web a better place. However, at the end of the day, who is in office will directly affect many aspects of my work, which many in the industry fail to account for. If my taxes go up or inflation increases, then my per-hour wage may have to jump more than my clients can comfortably afford, and I could either lose business or money by taking on cheaper/less jobs. If our country goes to war, gas prices go up and it costs me significantly more to drive to a client's home/business for a consultation, often a price I do not include in the contract. It's simple things like these that, as I said, do not add up in the moment, but trickle down from big events that eventually affect everyone.
As someone who owns his own business the current political climate is extremely important to me. Health insurance alone is a huge pain for us. We pay way too much for way too little coverage. If you have a pre-existing condition then you may as well forget it. We constantly feel as the odds are stacked against the independent professional. The health insurance industry is completely built upon the framework that giving healthcare coverage to people who need it is not profitable. Knowing that Obama, and Democrats in general, are going to do something about that gives me hope for my family's future.
And Brandy Reppy notes that: “trying to justify the expense of a well thought-out and maintained web presence to an organization or business that is struggling financially because of poor political decision-making is an uphill battle at best.”
There are also factors closer to home about which readers are concerned. Tristan Louis:
In this election cycle, things like open access, a high speed internet network architecture, and first amendment rights on the internet will be affected by who ends up in the White House as a result of this election.
Nathan Steiner took a closer look at the candidates’ technology positions, and writes:
Just for fun, compare the first google results for "Obama on technology" vs. "McCain on technology." Obama's result leads to his own page on the subject, which includes three clear and important priorities: net neutrality, broadband for everyone, and grants for research. McCain's result leads to a third party site listing his positions on technology, most of which reveal a generic focus on financial and taxing issues. I don't believe that either candidate would be considerably better or worse on issues directly related to web developers, but Obama has shown an understanding of the power of social networks and how to hook-up a grass-roots financing campaign into the web with unprecedented success. It seems that the health of the web as it relates to US business interests would greatly benefit from a president who understood it as clearly as the Obama camp does.
Finally, spare a thought for this guy:
I currently work for a company that relies pretty heavily on large enterprise customers and government agencies. So how those organizations' spending is affected by the policies set by government, and however directly or indirectly by the person sitting in the Oval Office does affect my company, my job, and any rewards I may earn as a result of our success. So ironically while I am very politically liberal in beliefs and in how I vote (I'm a Green Party member who votes Democrat), my company may benefit from policy makers who benefit large corporations, which I am generally opposed to.