Blog Title: Steffan Williams

Really Small

Following a conversation with my girlfriend…

I can’t draw worth a crap, but I’m thankful for the inspiration to get off the computer and do something else. Oh, and for those of you who are completely confused by this inside joke: my girlfriend is very short and I like puns.

Drawn on the very first page of my Carsonified Journal.

Playing With Words

What happens when you take a love for Twitter and mix it together with an hour of boredom? My answer is Wordmix.

The concept came from something I used to do while bored in lectures. You start by writing down a sentence, then pass this on to another person. This person changes one word in the sentence and passes it on… and so on, and so forth! This continues until everyone gets bored, or the sentence really just stops making any sense.

Wordmix is a social sentence. Each word in the sentence is built up from Twitter replies sent to @wordmix. Due to these phrases being created randomly, there’s a high chance of them not making any sense whatsoever! Just sit back, relax (maybe get a beer?) and watch the randomness.

So that’s it! Go check out Wordmix and start sending it some Tweets!

PS: It needs work.

Future of Web Apps London 2008

So, even though it’s old news by now, I figured I may as well give some form of opinion of FOWA 2008. Last year was the first time I had attended this event and, it has to be said, this year was better by far. I was going to do a larger talk-by-talk post, but I’ve decided against it because I’m not even interested in what I thought of them. Instead, I’m going to discuss the thing as a whole, with some specific things that stood out.

There are two “tracks”, Business and Development, that divide the conference. These tracks have talks going on simultaneously, so you have to pick your role and go with it (yeah, of course you can jump over to the other side whenever you want). Being more into the development side of things, the majority of the talks that I went to were in that track. The problem with the Development track is that the talks aren’t “techy” enough. A lot of them are vague overviews of how a particular company operates, with their spin on things. For example, Kevin Rose did a talk on the future of news. Instead of providing a concept for the future of news and how things could be, he gave a very digg-centric speech (who’d have thunk it?) on the digg recommendation engine mixed in with other digg stuff. I’m fine with him saying “use digg” or “digg rocks”, but I’d like it even more if he gave more of an in-depth analysis of the proposed features. Another example the guy from 280 North, who gave a lovely presentation, had some nice ideas but all-in-all was just one big sales pitch for “use Cappuccino and 280 Slides!!!”.

I think that that is the main problem with FOWA. The sales pitch. Maybe this is the wrong conference for me, but what I want is somewhere for tech or business minded people gathering to discuss and debate the future of web, with specifics in web applications. In FOWA, all of the talks are basically a sales pitch for that company. There are exceptions, don’t get me wrong, but in a lot of the talks its just one big advertisement.

Before anyone cries, “Yeah, but if person X wasn’t working for company Y then they wouldn’t be giving a speech and no one would know of them and no one would care what they have to say, plus I want to know about their company and so on and so forth and I really need to take a breath now…”, I’d like to say that this is what I mean by not “techy” enough. I’m fine with a company talking about their company, I just want to be given code and examples and general theory and not a “use our website, because we are great”.

I understand that people can’t give out their exact code because they are afraid of people stealing it, but a more in-depth look at things would be better than a sales pitch.

Some summarized points that I found interesting:

• When giving a demo, show the app and don’t just talk about it. No one gives a crap about your thoughts on anything other than the app, so don’t offer your opinion.
• Let people steal your content.
• Designer vs. Developer; don’t be just one.

Carsonified, the hosts of FOWA, were great enough film all of the presentations and put them online. The presentations below were my favourite from the entire event. They each offered insight, weren’t overly sales-pitchy and were just incredibly interesting to listen to.

Ben Huh
How to take your community to the next level

Jason Calacanis, Tom Nixon
Work/Life Balance and Blood Sweat and Tears

Jeremy Baines
How to build a desktop app from your web app.

Hypocrite note: This talk was a big sales pitch, but I still enjoyed it as I want to build a desktop app for one of my web apps and this inspired me to get working.

Blaine Cook & Joe Stump
Languages Don’t Scale (full version not released yet)

Kathy Sierra
How to grow and nurture your community.

You can check out the other presentations over at http://events.carsonified.com/, which is well worth doing, if you haven’t already.

And now some obligatory photos from the event:

Microsoft Surface

Myself with Ron Richards

Live Diggnation

Myself with Marcus from iusethis.com (This guy rocks)

I think what makes FOWA is the people and not the presentations. It is a social event, and you can get out of it what you put in. Carsonified tried to nurture this by giving out badges so people could write what they are looking for, what they are in to or pretty much anything to get a conversation going. It’s a mix of people — designers, developers, business-types — coming together over one thing, that make this a great event to attend.

PSP Game Giveaway: Winners

A couple of weeks ago I ran a competition to give away three PSP games. Well, I just wanted to announce the lucky people chosen as the winners:

1. Justine Powell
2. John Oxton
3. Aaron Ponsford

Congratulations to you guys. You should be contacted shortly by the e-mail you provided to get your game!

Redesign “Complete”

While I’m never happy with any design I do, I’m satisfied enough to officially unveil this “new” look. I think this is about the eighth or ninth blog redesign I’ve done, and I’m hoping that this one will last me more than just a couple of months.

This new theme is based on Steff dot Me, which is the beginning of my new home/portfolio.

Much like Steff dot Me, this theme only took a few hours to make — so I apologise if there are any bugs or issues that haven’t quite been worked out.

The biggest issue for this redesign was my stupid idea to have (some of) my categories colour coded. This meant that I had to go back through all of my past entries to ensure that they all had a category and that the category was actually correct. Not fun.

If you have any complaints, comments, thoughts, ideas about this new theme or just want to post something spammy, please use the comment form below.

Give Away: PSP Games

With all the Go!View posts I’ve been doing recently, what better way to top it off than a competition?

The lovely people over at Immediate Future have allowed me to create a little give away for three PSP games, namely:

• Echochrome
• Secret Agent Clank
• B-Boy

All you have to do is answer a rather simple question about the Go!View service:

There will be three winners who will each get a PSP game of their choosing. The first winner will get his first pick of the games, the second winner will get the second pick and the third winner will have the last game.

If you wish to participate in this give away, please leave your answer in the comments along with an e-mail address and a list of preference for the games. All comments will be moderated. Please note that this give away is for UK citizens only.

This give away will end on 22/09/08; after that I will be selecting the three winners randomly from everyone who commented with the correct answer.

Good luck!

Hint: Check out the “How to use GO!VIEW” video on their homepage.

Update: This contest has now finished.

Review: Go!View

You may remember from a previous post that Go!View is an “on-demand” video service for the PlayStation Portable. Well, last time I just introduced the service but after using it I wanted to add a few of my thoughts.

Getting Started

Getting up and running with Go!View is fairly simple. Being new to using a PSP (I hadn’t even played with one before last week), I watched the introductory video on their homepage and just tried to follow the steps. To start off, you’ll need to sign up for an account. Once you’ve gone through the rigmarole you’ve been through a thousand times (another new username and password for you to remember), you’ll have yourself a shiny, new Go!View account. This will allow you to watch all of your favourite TV shows and movies right in the palm of your hands ¹.

Using Go!View

The Go!View software is basically a glorified web browser, which just loads the Go!View website in a standalone application ². The first piece of advice I can offer is to make sure you have javascript and flash enabled on your actual, default web browser; I had mine disabled for some web testing and couldn’t for the life of me work out why the Go!View software wasn’t working. As it was a stand-alone application, separate from my browser, it didn’t occur to me that this would be an issue.

Once you have the Go!View app open, simply log in and browse around their media library. When you’ve found something you like, say Top Gear, simply hit the Download button and the video will begin downloading to your library in the background. The videos range in price, based on whether they are in the subscription model or the pay-as-you-go model and how new the video is:

Subscription packs are priced at £5 (€7) for 1 pack, £8 (€11) for 2 packs and £10 (€14) for all three packs and users can trial all three packs free for a month. Rental TV is available from £1.50 (€2.00) per episode and a range of movies is available from £2.50 (€3.20) each.

If you subscribe to one of the packs, Entertainment, Comedy or Sport, the videos that you download within that category are completely free; obviously you’ll still have to pay for movies and rental TV. It doesn’t take much time to complete a file download as they use the Kontiki peer-to-peer, file-sharing client.

The “My Library” tab shows you a list of your media, this includes information on a selected video, such as when it will expire and the file size. It is also from here that you can select videos for transfer to your PSP. The video files expire after 29 days sitting on your computer, or 14 days on your PSP — of course, if you’re signed up to one of the monthly subscriptions, you can just download that video again. Although it’s not the purpose of Go!View, the inability to play these videos on your computer is irritating.

Transferring a video to your PSP requires you to use a USB cable. Firstly, put your PSP in USB mode and connect it to your PC.

Poor quality iPhone picture.

You then have to use the Go!View software to select which files you wish to transfer over.

Last but not least (because it’s the entire point): watching the videos. The resolution of the videos are 480 x 272, which is fine for the PSP but if you wanted to plug your PSP into a TV for output, you’re going to end up with a rather blocky picture. I’ve been watching a lot of Top Gear on the PSP and the resolution really is just fine for the portable device.

Poor quality iPhone picture.

Final Verdict

Overall, the Go!View service is worth checking out if you’re a PSP owner. Remember that once you’ve signed up, you can sign up for a free month of Comedy, Sport and Entertainment shows; it’s worth a look just to get something for nothing. Just remember to cancel before the month is up, otherwise you’ll be charged for how many subscription packs you signed up for.

I have a slight issue with the transfer process, in that it won’t allow you access to your library while a transferring media.

Also, like I mentioned in my previous post, Go!View requires you to use Windows — something that I very rarely do!

All in all, if you’re looking for a way to get portable media this seems like a really good option. The library is quite small at the moment (in my opinion), however they claim to be increasing it all the time.

Thank you to the people at Immediate Future for the loan of the PlayStation Portable.

Footnotes
1. on a PSP. Not actually in your palm.
2. much like the site specific applications that Fluid creates.

Fifty Designers’ Current Favourite Typefaces

With an eclectic taste such as this, there’s a reason I don’t consider myself a designer.

Create/Reject have created a wonderful, little book entitled “Fifty Designers’ Current Favourite Typefaces“. Even though I purchased it a couple of months ago, I hadn’t gotten around to looking at it until now. It’s very interesting to see what style of fonts is in right now!

The book only cost £3 and all of the proceeds went to UNICEF. Unfortunately the book is sold out online, however it is still possible to pick it up from a bookshop in London or you can just donate straight to UNICEF — either is good.

Geek points will be awarded to anyone who can name any of these fonts in the comments!

Geek points cannot be redeemed for anything whatsoever. Geek points hold no credit value and are not valid within the United Kingdom when there is a full moon during any odd numbered months in an even numbered year.

Introducing: Steff dot Me

Two nights ago, instead of sleeping, I decided to create a new homepage for myself. Just a quick, simple website contain information about sites I use, what I’m doing and so on. I tried to include all that stuff on my blog in my last theme but it just got too cluttered.

Without further ado, I give you my new home on the web:

I wanted to go for a more “personal” look to the site and I tried really hard not to use brown. As you can probably tell, I suck at Photoshop… Still, I’m happy with the result!

Steff dot Me contains a list of projects I’m working on, places you can find me (Twitter, flickr etc.) and gives you a way to contact me easily, should you find an urge to.

So, feel free to go on over and check out my new place to chill, Steff dot Me. Oh, and let me know if you find any bugs or problems with it (Note: If you’re using IE, I couldn’t give a crap about you).

Go, View with Go!View

Go!View is a new, portable, video-on-demand service for the Sony PSP. This service brings Sky TV to the hand-held for people living in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Go!View provides categories of content including: Entertainment, Sports, Comedy, Movies, Latest TV. These categories are priced differently; Entertainment, Sports and Comedy “Packs” are charged on a subscription basis, while Movies and Latest TV are charged on a pay-per-view model. This combination of pay-per-view and subscription does sound a little bit confusing.

Subscription packs are priced at £5 (€7) for 1 pack, £8 (€11) for 2 packs and £10 (€14) for all three packs and users can trial all three packs free for a month. Rental TV is available from £1.50 (€2.00) per episode and a range of movies is available from £2.50 (€3.20) each.

While the library titles start at £2.50 for movie rentals, the newest releases cost £3.50, which are similar to the iTunes Store prices (Go!View is a penny more expensive).

The rentals that you download are available to you depending on the type of video and channel it was downloaded from. Go!View offers different licenses for each type, so check what you’re getting or you may be disappointed to find what you want to watch has expired. These expired rentals are automatically deleted.

The current content seems decent enough, offering television shows such as Top Gear, Eureka, Doctor Who and Lost, with many more offered through the subscription packs. The problem is that they aren’t the most recent episodes that have been shown. For example, Lost has currently just finished season four, however Go!View only offers selected episodes from season three. Go!View claim that they will be continually adding content spanning all of their genres, so the service can only get better.

Through agreements with distributors and broadcasters including Disney-ABC-ESPN Television, BBC Worldwide, Sony Pictures Television International, NBC Universal International Television Distribution, National Geographic and Sky Sports, Go!View can offer PSP users an excellent range of content. — Go!View Press Release

We are working with our content providers to secure a quality range of programming and ensure that PSP™ owners are getting the best possible service on-the-go and on-demand. — Alison Turner, General Manager, Go!View Entertainment UK.

Other than the obvious need for a PSP, Go!View has the following requirements:

Windows XP or 32 bit Microsoft Vista (Go!View on PC is currently not available on Mac or Linux) -Broadband connection (recommended minimum of 1Mb) -Internet explorer 6.0 or above -Windows Media player 11 (this can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com) -Adobe Flash player (The latest version can be downloaded from www.adobe.com) During the installation the following programs will also be installed (if you don’t already have them): -Microsoft.Net framework 2.0

With the lack of Mac support, I once again feel left out by Sky as their desktop “on-demand” service also requires the use of Windows. It’s a shame, because being a Sky customer (both full tier television and internet), I’d love to be able to use these services but there’s no way I’m switching back to Windows.

All in all, Go!View seems like a great idea if you need some form of portable, video-on-demand solution. For me, the inability to use a Mac is just too irritating; my primary computer is my iMac, with a MacBook for travel. If you are someone who doesn’t mind watching TV or movies on a small screen, check this service out. Go!View offers another way to enjoy your PSP, offering quality content that you want to watch on demand.

If you sign up now, there is a one month trial (30 days) subscription to the 3 entertainment packs (comedy, sport and entertainment). This is a completely free trial to new users, however if you don’t remember to cancel at the end of the trial your subscription will be automatically renewed at the applicable price. You’ve got nothing to lose (if you remember to unsubscribe), so give Go!View a go.