rogergordon.net

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This blog was a bit of a mission to set up, because I had to make sure all my 300+ old posts would import, and fit nicely into this new blog.

Right now I’m extremely tired! At least this part of the new rogergordon.net is finished!

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Although this current design is only about 7 months old, I’ve learned a lot since then, and having developed a strong interest in accessibility and usability, I decided to redesign the site from the ground up. It’s taken me about 3 weeks of studying and hard work, and in the process I’ve scrapped a few designs and learned about things I’d never even heard of (like kerning, grid-based design, and the golden mean). The site is nearing completion, and I thought I’d post a screen shot of what the home page will look like.
Original image on flickr

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It’s amazing what a group of people can do given enough time and motivation. Take a look at this absolutely incredible video of a group of people cheering their soccer team on by making pictures and animations by holding up colours. It’s difficult to describe until you’ve seen it, but it truly is one of the most amazing feats of group coordination I’ve ever seen.

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Wow. I’m completely blown away. I’ve just been chatting to some random person from Russia on http://www.ff0000.com/.

No, no, I know chatting to someone online isn’t particularly amazing. What blew me away was the way I was chatting to them. I won’t spoil the surprise. Go visit the site yourself. At first glance, it looks like a fairly standard design company’s site. Nice layout, some Flash here an there and some cool looking fonts. However a small unobtrusive panel on the right lets you chose a character, name and location, and then you are dropped into an entirely interactive world. It’s beautifully designed and you can chat with whomever happens to be around. I can’t describe it properly, so click on the image and see for youself what it’s all about.

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A Dowry, for those of you who aren’t aware, is a gift or money paid to the family of a groom by the parents of the bride. Thousands of girls are abused, enslaved and brutally murdered in India every year as a result of dowry-related disputes. Here is the story of a girl named Roopa. I must warn you that some of the images are rather disturbing…

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People in South Africa are always complaining about the crime (which is admittedly bad), and I find it tedious to listen to it day after day. So when I received an email titled ‘Crime in SA is out of control’, I sighed a little and politely opened the message out of duty. Well, as you’ll see, I was pleasantly surprised! Give the animation a few moments to load.

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I got a new phone this weekend and I must say, I’m quite pleased with it, overall. It’s a Nokia 6110 Navigator, which means its selling point is an integrated GPS unit. I was rather sceptical about how well it would work, and whether the included maps would be detailed enough for South Africa. However, I’m pleasantly surprised. The unit managed to successfully navigate me around Sandton this afternoon, using spoken voice prompts alone. When I disobeyed its suggestions, it quickly calculated a new route. It gave instructions at just the right frequency, and kept a good signal even when placed inside one of my car’s dashboard storage cavities. Start up time to aquire a satellite signal was about a minute, but the unit needed to be outdoors to get this initial signal. There are plenty of options to change display options and the standard map comes loaded with a ton of information about nearby petrol stations, shops, restaurants and other attractions. This could put an end to my lack of directional sense forever.
Oh, and the 6110 is also a great smart phone as well. In fact, I wrote this entire post with it, although I can feel a mile case of thumb cramp coming on…

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I’ve been considering finding a job as a web designer in the UK, and found this question on the downloadable visa application form:

Have you ever been concerned in the commission, preparation, organisation or support of acts of terrorism, either within or
outside the United Kingdom, or have you ever been a member of an organisation which has been involved in or advocated
terrorism in furtherance of its aims?

Now honestly, if you were a terrorist, would you seriously answer ‘yes’ on a visa application form? I just don’t get the thinking behind this kind of thing. It’s probably there to satisfy some obscure legal requirement in the UK… Thoughts?

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It’s great to find new, unknown music . It’s even better when the music is so good that you just know that the band is going to be famous one day. I felt that way about the band Earthsuit before they dissolved and re-formed Mutemath, who are doing quite well as far as I can tell. This time round the band consists of 3 guys in their very early 20s, from Norway, oddly name ‘Lorraine’. Their single ‘I feel it’ is the best sounding tune I’ve heard this year and follows what I consider to be a potentially successful formula for 2007:

Great melody + good voice + retro electo vibe = success.

If you visit their MySpace page, you’ll be able to hear what I mean, and get the single yourself when you sign up for their newsletter. Trust me, the minute amount of pain caused by another piece of spam in your inbox is worth this track.

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This time it’s a bit better, but I think it takes too long to get going, so it might be a bit boring. Again, I made this with Apple’s Garageband music creation software. The electric guitar you can hear is a software instrument, played with a computer keyboard, and the singing is me with an echo effect on my voice. I had fun making it! Feel free to download the track (2.1 Mb, 64kbps MP3). I think the tune sounds quite dynamic, so I’ve named it ‘Change’.