Lauri Kieksi

I may be a complete amateur when it comes to DSLR photography,...

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:10:00 +0300

I may be a complete amateur when it comes to DSLR photography, but at least I’m an enthusiastic amateur. These and a number of other fresh shots on my Flickr photostream.

The Generic Web Guy

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:12:00 +0300

In this day and age of blooming ICT businesses, what’s a web guy to refer to himself as? It seems that both “web designer” and “web developer” as terms have become muddled in recent years, with a tremendous amount of overlap in how they’re used and what they refer to.

To further confuse things, the web is now seen as an interface platform, both in the sense of website front-ends being thought more of as user-facing interfaces used to manipulate database-driven data; and in the sense that new kinds of web applications are starting to become increasingly common, forcing us to think harder about things like crossbrowser usability, interface conformity across multiple kinds of devices ranging from mobile devices to desktop computers, and so on.

I often call myself a web designer, or a user interface designer. Sometimes even a web developer. It all depends on who I’m talking to and what kind of responsibilities I’m being entrusted with at the time. Of course, it goes with the territory of working in a company that numbers in the 20-something range instead of employing hundreds or even thousands of people: each employee has a wider range of responsibilities. It certainly never gets boring. The flip side is it’s sometimes hard to know which track your career is heading down.

I actually kind of like the sound of that… “Web Guy”. I should get that printed on a set of calling cards.

Gizmodo: Mixr Shows the Delicious Promise of Multitouch Music iPad Apps

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:24:46 +0300

Gizmodo: Mixr Shows the Delicious Promise of Multitouch Music iPad Apps:

So, sure, the iPad may just be an overgrown iPhone. But this teaser shot of Mixr, a fully-featured, multitouch DJ app, should give you a sense of just how awesome apps designed for an oversized iPhone can be.

The oft-recited mantra “it’s about the apps, stupid” rings true again. The iPad might technically be just an oversized iPod Touch, but four times the screen real-estate transforms the device into something else entirely, as long as the apps are there to support it.

The Opposite of Fitts' Law

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:53:00 +0200

The Opposite of Fitts' Law:

The issue of actions leading to data loss and their place in the overall UI is a point that’s come up quite often in some of the projects I’ve been involved in recently. Jeff Atwood raises some very good points about the placement of such UI elements. I don’t really use Gmail’s web interface (I mostly use my iPhone and Mail.app to access my Gmail account), so I never really realized how poorly some of their UI decisions have been thought out until I saw this article.

Photoshop CS5 Content Aware Fill

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:08:00 +0200

This video of Content Aware Fill, supposedly coming in Photoshop CS5, is a real shocker. This is photo retouching on autopilot, for actual-honest-to-goodness-real.

I’ve used Photoshop since version 4, and I don’t recall ever being this excited for an upcoming feature. Adobe, I don’t know how you came up with the math behind this wizardry, but… I love you. Adobe Systems, Inc… will you marry me?

Opera Bullish About App Store Submission

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:47:29 +0200

Opera Software submitted Opera Mini for iPhone to Apple for App Store approval and is now hosting a competition to promote the browser: whoever guesses closest as to how long it’ll take Apple to approve Opera Mini wins a brand new iPhone. Notable, although totally obvious in a PR sense: those silly Norwegians won’t let you guess “never”. You need to register for a My Opera account to participate.

MacUpdate Spring Bundle

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:54:00 +0200

I might have to take the plunge with MacUpdate’s Spring 2010 bundle if only for Hydra and Parallels Desktop 5. Considering they’re both $79 by themselves and the whole bundle is only $49.99, it doesn’t really matter if I never end up using any of the other apps included. And if I do, hey, bonus.

NYT: Why @ Is Held in Such High Design Esteem

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:32:10 +0200

NYT: Why @ Is Held in Such High Design Esteem:

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has deemed the symbol to meet its standards on form, function, values, cultural impact and innovation.

USA Today: Teemu Selänne's 600th goal helps Ducks beat Avalanche

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 07:50:00 +0200

USA Today: Teemu Selänne's 600th goal helps Ducks beat Avalanche:

The only other European-born players in the 600-goal club are Finnish countryman Jari Kurri (601) and the Czech Republic’s Jaromir Jagr (646).

Sorry, Flash, you're out of luck.

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:33:52 +0200

Sorry, Flash, you're out of luck.

Kieksi.fi - A Weekend Project

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:48:00 +0200

On a moment’s impulse, I checked to see if my surname was available as a domain in .fi, .com and other assorted varieties, which it was. I’ve been looking to refresh my personal portfolio now that I’m more fluent in certain popular JS libraries. I’d also been looking to move under a more personal domain name as the Pixelcentric.net domain I’ve held for a number of years isn’t as relevant today as it was when I registered it to promote my freelancing — I’m no longer doing significant amounts of freelance work.

So, I bit the bullet, and thus bid you welcome to Kieksi.fi, my little project over the weekend. At the moment I don’t have MySQL set up on the server, but I’m hoping to get that dealt with so I can move the journal and portfolio onto one of the many free SQL-based CMS products out there. Although Tumblr is working out quite nicely.

Office Slave

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0200

Starting at my new job today, as web designer-slash-developer for Crasman Co Ltd in Helsinki. To say that I’m pretty excited to be given the opportunity would most certainly be a glorious understatement.

Tweet, Tweet

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0200

I keep trying Twitter on and off, but for some reason I just can’t get into tweeting. Maybe if I could figure out a way to tweet entries right into my weblog… hmm.

Visual Mathematician

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0200

I’m not necessarily the biggest believer in web tests, but this one is telling me something about myself that I already know, so I guess the test designers are on to something. I’m not so sure about the bit regarding “high intelligence”, however.

Your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician. This means you are gifted at spotting patterns — both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction — especially in the workplace.

Boot Camp

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0300

Holy snikies, I guess I should be glad I didn’t bother with the EFI boot loader hackery needed for the third party Mac/WinXP dual boot solution…

Update: Typing this on my iMac running Windows XP. I have to say Apple made Boot Camp so painless it’s a guilty pleasure to install and boot Windows XP.

I installed WinXP onto a FAT32 partition so I could exchange files across the two OS’es without MacDisk for Windows, which I hear is a great tool, but regardless I’d like to avoid additional costs. I just hope the decision to skip NTFS doesn’t come back and bite me in the proverbial rear-section.

The first things I did, upon reaching the WinXP desktop and disabling the godawful XP blue and green theme, were installing QuickTime, iTunes, and Firefox…

The Apple-provided drivers are working really well, no issues with installation whatsoever.

NYT Redesign

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0300

The New York Times has a new web layout. It’s still too damn busy, but they now make smarter use of horizontal space and meaningful spacing in general.

Video of Windows XP Booting on Intel iMac

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0200

This video hosted on Vimeo looks like pretty convincing proof that hacker duo narf2006 and blanka have successfully gotten Windows XP to boot on an Intel Core Duo iMac — which would mean they have a pretty strong case for OnMac.net’s $13,000 prize money for providing a Windows XP dualbooting solution for Intel based Macs… the word on the street is their method requires hacking ntldr, so this is probably not a very practical (or legal) way of shoehorning Windows into a Mac. If this is indeed the case, BAMBIOS may look more viable since it’s designed to be non-disruptive and does not require the OS software to be modified.

Update: The contest is indeed over, and the winner(s) will receive $13,854. Still waiting on further details.

C Stands For Crappy

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0200

CNet News.com is at it again.

In the past few weeks CNet with the help of ZDNet has published a veritable flurry of fear, uncertainty and doubt against Mac OS security. A while ago they branded as viruses a pair of malicious scripts that either exploit already fixed security issues or require user action to actually do anything.

They then claimed that a hacking contest involving a Mac thatgave out SSH accounts and had ports open (settings that a standard desktop installation connected to the Internet will not have enabled) was a valid indication of Mac OS security issues.

At least they had the spine to report D. Schroeder’s alternative hacking contest involving a Mac using default settings — i.e. ports closed and no local accounts provided.

However, CNet is now basically saying that because a malicious application can have a custom icon, such as the icon of a JPEG file, Mac OS has a fatal security problem. This “issue” of the blindly trusting user, of course, affects all modern desktop operating systems as long as they’re connected to the Internet.

DS Lite: The Screen Might Kill You

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Check out this hilariously funny video review of the Nintendo DS Lite by Cabel of Panic, Inc. As for the device itself, I’m a bit concerned by the shape. Like the reworked Game Boy Advance, this design might feel a bit like holding those very square Nintendo 8-bit controllers all over again, but otherwise it seems like a very neat system.

These programs are causing Windows to start slowly…...

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0200

These programs are causing Windows to start slowly… d’oh.