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Attempting to watch the iPad video on Apple's site8 days ago, 4:44 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: tech, Apple, Bad User Interface Just went to watch the iPad video on Apple's site. This is what I got: 
No error message. No "do you want to upgrade?" message. No indication of what's wrong. Clicking on it does nothing. I don't even know how to download a new version of Quicktime. So much for the whole "Flash is dying" thing*. If this is the user experience people get -- something out of the RealVideo playbook -- Flash video isn't going to go away anytime soon. * Not officially endorsed by Apple, by the way. Just unofficially. How Hanford saved New YearJan-2-10, 2:19 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: fun  If you remember (or still watch) any of the classic animated Christmas TV specials like Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer then you know how, year after year, Christmas comes this close to not happening -- until someone saves it. It's a timeless plot line that we see again and again.
However, this year, in real life, Happy New Year came this close to not happening for a crowd of Continued Rudolph's Shiny New Year: Father Time's SongAnd a happy 2010 from HanfordDec-31-09, 3:39 am by Hanford | Read full postFile under: fun, Video games  To celebrate I thought I'd share Father Time's Song from the classic holiday special Rudolph's Shiny New Year. Unless you're a hardcore Rankin/Bass fan like myself, chances are the last time you saw Shiny New Year (if ever) was either 20+ years ago, or recently on the ABC Family channel. But ABC Family cuts this song out completely to make room for commercials.
But I actually think this is right up there with some of the best Rankin/Bass tunes they made, has a message appropriate to its theme, and is worth sharing here. Although Rudolph's Shiny New Year has a completely contrived and absurd plot* it's actually one of my favorite Rankin/Bass specials. It kind of has a video-game-like plot to it -- a lot of weird stuff happening simply to give Rudolph a quest. In fact, for quite a while now I've had an idea for an RPG set in the Rankin-Bassiverse. Oh, someday. Happy New Year Everyone!*Among other weirdness, it is acknowledged that this happens after Rudolph saved Christmas with his shiny nose, but in this special he somehow has reverted to a fawn, complete with undeveloped antlers) Prediction: the Apple Tablet will flopDec-26-09, 3:00 am by Hanford | Read full postFile under: tech, Apple  There's been a lot of rumors going around about the fabled Apple Tablet. For the longest time I've been a skeptic of it ever appearing, but now the rumors are just too loud and too frequent to ignore.
I'm skeptical of the Apple Tablet taking off. And after the jump I'll list my reasons why. Continued App idea: Foursquare for hipstersInstead of "checking in" to places when you arrive, you "check out" when you're leaving and post a snarky comment about how it's not cool anymore. Dec-22-09, 2:48 pm by Hanford | File under: fun, techMicrosoft Intellimouse Precision BoosterDec-19-09, 8:50 pm by Hanford | Read full postI just discovered Microsoft Intellimouse control panel has a "Precision Booster" mode. you can set up your mouse so that when you hold down a specific button, the mouse slows down, allowing you to make pixel accurate positioning of your mouse with ease. Very cool, and quite useful for photoshopping and other precise controls. Continued 2009: The year I finally started using web browsers maximized to full screen on my desktop machine.Dec-10-09, 10:49 pm by HanfordStatus, and minor blog updateDec-6-09, 11:14 pm by Hanford | Read full postHi y'all. Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. But it's been even longer since you commented. Unless you're selling Ugg boots -- I got hammered with 8,000 spam comments for them in two days. So I had to implement a spam filter/turing test on comments. Sorry about that. For what it's worth, I don't think it's that big of a pain in the ass. In fact, I made a game out of it! Kind of. I plan on blogging more soon. ~Hanford Unity 3D subreddit on reddit.comUnity has it's own Subreddit on reddit.com. Not a lot of activity yet ... but let's change that! Check it out at http://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/.
Unity: Rotating GUI textSep-2-09, 11:35 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Unity, tech Just a quick one: Unity/iPhone developer Col000r throws a cool code snippet to do rotated GUI text:
// This comes from Col000r's site:
//http://col000r.blogspot.com/2009/08/unity-rotated-gui-text.html
function OnGUI () {
var pos : Vector3 = new Vector3(100, 200, 0); //position for matrix
var quat : Quaternion = Quaternion.identity; //rotation for matrix
quat.eulerAngles = Vector3(0, 0, 90); //set the rotation to something - rotate around z!
GUI.matrix = Matrix4x4.TRS(pos, quat, Vector3.one); //Apply the matrix
GUI.Label(Rect(0, 0, 200, 20), "Some Text"); //notice how the rect starts at 0/0 and the matrix handles the position!
}
I've not tried it, but it's pretty cool. Nice work, Col000r. Col000r's got a lot of great tips for programming, sound, modelling and animating. Definitely a blog worth bookmarking/subscribing to.  |
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I design things in Silicon Valley; mostly consumer electronics media players. Perhaps I can design things for you. Check out my UI Portfolio. When I'm not making things for other people, I'm usually making video games. more
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