Archive for November, 2005
Serif, or Sans-Serif: that is the question..
November 30th, 2005When it comes down to whether to use a serif or a sans-serif font in a design, many people choose by taste. But from time to time you’ll meet someone who tells you that serif-based fonts are more readable due to various reasons.
My typography teacher, for example, always used to tell me that serifs were more readable than sans-serif fonts because serifs are used to guide the flow of the eye. I, up to now, always believed this and thus often chose to use serif fonts for those layouts where informational purposes stood in the foreground.
I just found this interesting article from Alex Poole who spend a lot of time researching whether the above statement, and others, are true.
The result is interesting, to say the least, and should be known to anybody who frequently uses serif fonts as he believes that they enhance readability.
Alex Poole - Literature Review - Serif vs. Sans Serif Legibility
Jonathan Ive among the most influential Britains
November 30th, 2005
From TUAW via Sunday Times
The british Sunday Times listed the 25 most influential expatriates in America. Jonathen Ive made the third place, as he has “shaken up two industires - music and electronics”
VideoLAN VLC Mediaplayer 8.4 has been released
November 30th, 2005
A new version of the VLC Mediaplayer has been released.
This new release features many improvements including a new VLC cone, new Mac OS X wizard and extend controls dialogs, tree playlist skins2 support, HTTP interface CGI handling, linux binary codecs loader, UPnP and Bonjour service discovery, shoutcast stream forwarding, new languages …
VideoLAN - Free Software and Open Source video streaming solution for every OS!
Firefox - Rediscover the web
November 30th, 2005
Firefox 1.5 has been released!
The award-winning Web browser is better than ever. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoy improvements to performance, ease of use and privacy.
Apart from the new usability, security, privacy and performance enahcnements there are some added improvements with respect to web development. We reported about this earlier.
Fetch it!
HTML Tools on the Mac Command Line
November 30th, 2005
There’s a new article on MacDevCenter which explains various HTML Tools on the Mac OS X commandline (read: Terminal.app).
CLI Tools (especially on unix-based systems) have a high amount of features which can be utilized to solve certain specific tasks via shell- or apple-scripts. Even Automator allows to include cli tools into it’s workflows.
This MacDevCenter Article explains how to use some tools so you can modify or create html-files on the fly.
Apple releases Broadband Tuner 1.0
November 30th, 2005Broadband Tuner is a utility that tweaks the system parameters ofMac with very high speed Internet connections - 5 Mbps or faster.
I’m not among the lucky ones with such a high-speed connection (although 4Mbps here at work ain’t bad either ;) ), but if you are, this might be just what you’ve been waiting for.
iLife and iWork ‘06? Front Row?
November 30th, 2005MacRumors reports that, due to an unconfirmed report, Apple is set to release new versions of iLife and iWork in mid-January. The new iLife version will include FrontRow 2.0 and support for an optionable $50 remote control.
See the Quad G5 in Action
November 29th, 2005hardmac.com has a video which shows a Quad G5 versus a dual 2.5 G5 in applying a blue filter on a video in Final Cut. The Quad G5 beats the Dual G5 hands down.
The entry can be found here, direct link to the video is here.
The Worlds Biggest Linklist - A Guinness Record Tryout
November 29th, 2005Back when I was young, I loved the Guinness Book of Records. Not only was it interesting to read what kind of records people had been working on, there was a lot of fact information too. Longest bridge, heaviest plane, highest skyscraper and so on. My friends and me, we spend countless hours digging through it, hoping to find the funniest or coolest record (like this guy with the longest fingernails).
Now you can be part of a record too! Worldsbiggestlinklist.com tries to reach for a Guinness Book of Records entry by creating the longest link-list ever. Not only a funny idea, but also a good way to advertise your page, the higher in the list you are, the more people will see your page if this idea catches on (read: if it’ll be posted at digg)
Great idea.
Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for OS X
November 29th, 2005Open Source Mac has a listing of open source apps for Mac OS X. Some of them (like Camino or Adium) are well known, but there are some gems I hadn’t heard about yet. Check it out.
