n-spire - hysterical web

When Apple released the iPad, it had a very aggressive price point. For Apple. So all of the Apple haters and the competition thought. Then there was silence in the tablet-business for about half a year and then the first "results" from other manufacturers emerged.

They all had something in common: they weren’t cheaper, they weren’t better, they hadn’t better Apps and ecosystem and their OS wasn’t ready in a lot of aspects. The result? Nearly every tester said it was a nice try, but no "iPad-Killer" at all. End of story, so far (just a couple of weeks ago HP gave up on WebOS).

When we work with some of our clients, it is so remarquable to observe from time to time the very same product "innovations" attitude. Our clients have a new product and want us to make "outstanding" advertising for it. Then we’re dealing with their competition to find some sort of USP. (Yeah, even in the times of social networks and viral advertising something like an USP could be a fine idea.)

Guess what? Sometimes we find out, that the new product is (to say the least) mediocre and there will be no chance for it to stand against the competition. Even our advice to change the product here and there to the better is seen as some sort of an affront. The funny thing is sometimes the reply: "Well, yes, you’re right, but we have to deal with the setting even if it is not hitting the target precisely!"

Is it so difficult to take advice from someone who made an in-dept competition analysis? Is it so difficult, to leave a mediocre product, where it has to be: in the drawer?

Well, we are eager to work for the best of our clients. Because only a healthy and successful client is a good client and good promotion for our work. Needless to say, that the mediocre products are succeeded by bad economical prospects …

Well, you probably know it, when you’re working in the creative field. You got a client, you worked for him and some day he asks you, to give him the "open data" of your creations.
Well, this is some sort of a very unpleasant situation, because on one side, you don’t want to offend your client, and on the other side, you don’t want to give you’re files to another designer, who just exploits your former work (and even gets money for it).

But this is not, what I want to tell you today. Let’s assume, your client wants to do the business cards of his employees inhouse. Nothing to oppose, you would assume, but in reality, you could easily end up in huge pile of non-paid work either. Let’s talk about a typical situation.

1. Client asks you for the "open data"
2. You compile the data, and send it over via email
3. Three or more weeks pass.
4. Client emails you and asks for a "word"or "other version" of your data. Let’s assume, you did it in InDesign CS 3. Client has CS. (Well in fact, there are ways to downgrade the files, but its unpaid work …)
5. You explain three or four different people that it’s not possible to downgrade without any loss ...
6. one additional week passes
7. the semi-pro graphics designer (who is no graphics designer) at your clients’ office gives you a ring and asks you to give him Windows versions of the fonts. Off course you’re on a Mac and converting the fonts is none of your business (in fact it’s forbidden due to legal affairs).
8. Client is in a bad mood - you are in a bad mood. In the meantime you know, that if you had done it by yourself, all would be ready for weeks. Your client would be happy and you wouldn‘t have lost so much time.

That’s why there are Designers and advertising agencies. They do it faster, and in the end cheaper. And everybody would be happy. Fragg.

So Led Zeppelin ripped off the music of their biggest hits? Star Wars is only a conglomerate of original movies rearranged? Wanna know the truth? Watch "Everything is a Remix" by Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker. Awesome project.

In the 90s I bought a couple of SONY ESPRIT audio gadgets. They were acclaimed by lots of magazines like AUDIO and STEREOPLAY in Germany. They were crafted in a manner, you won’t find today at SONY and they were very expensive. Today, you must probably look into the portfolios of other High-End manufacturers, such as ACCUPHASE to get audio gadgets crafted like those ancient SONYs. Now my CD-player, a CDP-X559 ES is making trouble. No problem, I thought to myself, I’ll get it repaired.

Well, in fact, it IS a problem. A hell of a problem. SONY isn’t able to provide the spare parts, because, they only guarantee you parts that are not older than 10 years. So I will have to trash my High-End CD-player, if I don’t find a solution. Sad. Because the 12-kg-monsterplayer is built to last past an atomic war. I thought, manufacturers like SONY did these gadgets to impress us all with their craftsmanship. As I see it now: no more SONY. In the end, these guys are to expensive for me. No reliance. Pity.

Remember, when I stated, that the first season of B5 was a bit, let’s say, lighter and ... annoying? In fact, after rewatching it during the last fortnight, I must correct myself. It isn’t, and here’s why:
The cast is introduced very carefully and the building of the characters is even better than in Battlestar Galactica (the new series). Speaking of BSG. When it was finished, everyone liked the very "realistic" approach. The point of views of the Cylons and the Galactica Trail, the changing of minds to desperation and so on. BSG had some sort of metaphysical message. Here a monotheistic religion (like ours) and there lots of gods (like in the Roman Empire). And then the changing of minds of liked people from nice to ugly. It was all acclaimed. BUT.

It was not new at all. B5 did it nearly 10 years before. The only difference was, that B5 had to struggle with SFX and sets that didn’t match the epic story at all. So it was charged by the looks, which led to some sort of underestimation. Pity.

G’Kar’s change from an arrogant Narn full of hate against the Centauri to the only one to understand what’s going on in the outer rim is great. Nobody believes him, when he talks about the "shadows". Londo’s growing influence on Centauri Prime with the help of Morden ressembles the Goethe tradegy of Dr. Faustus. Even the name "Morden" is a hint. ("Mord" (German) is the translation of "murder").

Delenn changes from an ambassador to a very important person. Sinclair remembers the white spots in his mind. President Santiago is assassinated (but it looks like an accident), Garibaldi shot from behind, when he’s on the verge to find out, what’s going on.

Remember: all this in the first season. A setting, that is - by all means - strong and powerful, even stronger than BSG. BSG was more desperate, had a stunning realism (e.g. the genozide) but less secrets.

Not to forget the numerous little hints on things to come in the next and following seasons. The shadows were "announced" very early, in the episode Signs and Portents. And Morden’s introduction by asking "What do you want?" is marvellous and odd at the same time.

So B5 Season 1 is one hell of an opening of a new universe. But wait for the following seasons.

So you’re surfing with an iPad. You pay a visit to your favourite discussion board (e.g. Appleinsider) and are annoyed after hitting the wrong page in the disussion the third time. The links are to small, and you don‘t wanna use two-finger-enhancement "just to turn a page" …

This pretty much sums up, why website-design has to change fundamentally in the coming months. Tablets are a nice thing, right now, the iPad is the only one, that counts (yeah, there are some Android-try-outs like Samsung’s "achievement" which got it just on par after nearly 8 months) and the surf experience has changed in less than 6 months. Sure, Mobile Safari gives you bigger fonts, but the reading experience is dependant of you double tapping the text very often. The genuine discussion board is only readable in landscape mode, and even there you are forced to enhance the comments.

Some websites are very complex and use even wider layouts, which isn’t helpful either, when the fonts are to small.

To sum it up: Yes, surfing with an iPad is fun. But most sites and designs aren’t best for it. I predict a bunch of new designs with bigger fonts, better structual gags and buttons AND links, that are easy to tab. Maybe, the old psd-rendered buttons will see some sort of reanimation. And then there is HTML 5. Imagine the possibilities …

John Gruber at daringfireball.net gave a nice advice a fortnight ago: trash flash in your normal browsers, get google chrome, ’cos it has flash built in, and pack some plug ins in your Safari to get the most out of all websites.

Sounded fair to me, ’cos I’m using my iPad and iPhone very often and a don’t miss flash in 99% of all cases. I was using clicktoflash in Safari but it was some sort of buggy, so I took on Gruber’s advice.

Well, the problem is, that Safari is Safari and doesn’t identify himself as Mobile Safari, which would change a lot. If you’re on Mobile Safari, you’ll get the "GET FLASH" logo very seldom, because you’re already redirected to a version of the website, were flashmovies are changed to html 5 elements. But if you’re on Safari, it’s a bit annoying, that you get very often the "Get Flash" message instead of being redirected. You can surely change the user agent in the developper menu to "Mobile Safari" for that page, but it is also a bit tedious in the long run. I remember a time, when good webdesign meant, that you give the user, what he wants. If someone is not using flash he might have his reasons. Maybe his company has a tight security policy, or he doesn’t want to use it. Not using it on any given laptop gives you indeed more time …

10 years ago, you would have been redirected secretly. The website would have been readable without flash. That’s not the case any more. Even flash ads aren’t served with gif surrogates any more.

So will I stay flashless with my Safari? Yes. Once you’ve encountered how fast your browser can be, you don’t want to switch back. If I need flash badly, I’ll use chrome. Haven’t used it for the last 3 days. So trash flash. The more, the better.

One more thing: when you visit youtube without flash, you’ll get the following message in Germany - "Führe ein Upgrade auf Flash Player 10 durch, um die Wiedergabequalität zu verbessern. Jetzt upgraden oder weitere Informationen erhalten"

This is hilarious. You get better movie quality with … flash??? I mean, watching an mv4-movie directly is worse than through a buggy and ressource hogging plug in? WTF. Get serious guys.

Well, in the end of season 4 the characters of Babylon 5 were pretty settled - in a positive way, of course. Ivanova had become a leader and her rough edges were a bit smoother. Sheridan developed to some sort of politician and hard fighter, Garibaldi switched into private business. But the two most important characters, Londo and G’Kar were in fact the very heart of the story. OK. There was Delenn, but she was not so important at all.

When season 1 introduced the cast - still with Commander Sinclair - the heroes and villains weren’t so determined. Actually, they all were a bit pale - maybe with the exception of Londo, who then was introduced as a rich parvenu from Centauri Prime. The insights in the Centauri society were interesting and in parts very funny, to say the least. Londo appeared to be a nice guy, who was honored by fate and kissed by many muses. He had his difficulties with G’Kar AND the Babylon 5 authorities but his life was a sweet dream. In the beginning. This would change soon enough.

G’Kar was’nt existent as a personality yet. Sure, he impressed by his sheer appearance and oxfordian accent but not by his deep and profound "personality" - this was yet to come. Compare this to the G’Kar in Season 4, when he is fighting with himself, to team up with Londo for the sake of the galaxy and the humans. Or his humiliation by the emperor on Centauri Prime.

Ivanova was nothing more than a spear carrier in the first 4 or 5 episodes. Delenn’s function was to show the mystery of a superior alien race, Garibaldi was, well, the policeman and Dr Franklin was a typical doctor (until the episode "Infection" which was a marvellous preview to the shadow problems coming up …).

And then there was Cmdr Sinclair. 15 years ago I wasn’t sure if I liked him. He appeared to me as a rough person and I couldn’t stand his "hero-status" derived from the Minbari war. BUT.

After watching the first 5 episodes, especially "Midnight in the Firing Line" and "Born to the Purple" I must confess that he was the more interesting person than the early Sheridan. Sinclair was taken out after the first season because the audience didn’t like him so much. What a pity. He would have been the better Sheridan in the long run (Except for one episode in season 4: Intersections in Real Time – this was one hell of an episode).

When Babylon 5 showed up for the first time in Germany, I was really deeply impressed by the computer graphics, pardon, cgi. In fact, they were made on an AMIGA Computer, which impressed me even more (there was no Mac Software, to do that). OK, the sets weren’t marvellous, compared to other Sci-Fi shows, but it was some sort of a "different" approach.

When the series developed through the years, it became obvious, that this wasn’t comparable to the happy shiney StarTrek Universe with a bunch of good integer people. In fact, Babylon 5 was a story about treason, a coup d’etat and a big war – chaos vs. good, the "shadows" vs. the "vorlons ". Sounds familiar for Germans, who have read Perry Rhodan - the world’s biggest SciFi-Series of all time.

Babylon 5 had a fascinating development ’till the end of season 4. Yeah, there was a season 5, but it wasn’t important for the big picture in any way. You could drop that season 5 and the story that is told from season 1 through 4 is pretty complete. Even the last episode in season 4 "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" isn’t in any way a preparation for another season, it is some sort of a retrospective seen from a perspective 100, 500 and 1,000 years later …

A German tv-station was showing the old Babylon 5 series recently. So I decided to take a look at the marvellous season 4, so to say the grand Finale of Babylon 5. When watching it, I was reminded of the months of waiting from season to season. Of course, now all is on DVD and I decided to start all over with season 1, which I remembered as a bit slow and sometimes annoying.

After watching the first episode "Midnight on the Firing Line" I remembered vividly my sentiments towards the setting. The personalities and the protagonists. In fact, back then, I loved Ambassador Londo Molari, and hated G’Kar the Narn. The setting in the first episode showed a clean cast: here the good ones, there the evil ones. But none of them knew at that time, what the future would bring - the "shadow war" and a bunch of new allies, villains and traitors.

I’m looking forward reviewing the whole first season, even with its annoying D.C. Fontana (StarTrek-like) stories. Because in the end, all episodes had some sort of relevance for the whole ouevre. OK. Modern people, who are used to computer generated images of more recent series and movies will be definitely disappointed by the sfx and sets. But the story, which is the very heart of the Babylon 5 saga, is still a milestone in SciFi-narration. Joseph Michael Straczynski did a brilliant job.

Hilarious.

The Star Wars trilogy recreated with paper animation, set to a Sith-ly mellow song by Jeremy Messersmith. Awesome.

Jay Lauf: "What happens if an “iStand” supplants the newsstand in the way iTunes has supplanted the record store and it supplants our traditional means of driving subscriptions?"

Well, sort of. The website "I write like" investigates your style. Just paste some text in the field and let it get analyzed. Voilà.

I pasted this fragment of an old thriller I begun in the 80’s:
"This day in September was, what you’d expect from August. Blazingly hot, and a bit rainy. Some sweat causing wind was even blowing through the offices and the dark outside with its rain defending trees, that got skeletted for winter more and more, pressed hard on the mood of everyone.

His thoughts were circling around that setting. Should he - the phone - party this evening, to forget the negative mood or should he - the telephone - end his normal life by misusing three Hamburgers and a diet Pepsi …

He answered the phone.

„Is that Lancelot Rayam?“ whispered a voice that ressembled an angel.
„Yeah, definitely. What can I do for you Ma’m?“
„I need help. I need the best private investigator!“
Wrong number. What a pity. He was the owner of an ad agency! Not a private investigator. The only thing he investigated, was the competition of his clients."

Unfortunately, the text can only be analyzed in English. So I translated it briefly. This was the result. "I write like Raymond Chandler". I think it is linked to some keywords like "private investigator" or stuff like this. Anyway. Try it. It’s fun.

iPad-Nutzer sind egoistisch, machthungrig, unfreundlich, reich, gebildet und an Finanzfragen besonders interessiert. So siehts jedenfalls My Type. Interessante Betrachtung:

"What do selfish elites see in the iPad that others don’t? Perhaps nothing. Five hundred dollars is a lot to spend on an untested product, maybe it’s just a matter of affordability. The data, however, show that people who have all the traits of the selfish elite except wealth are much more likely than the average non-wealthy person to wish they can afford an iPad."

Der ganze Blog-Eintrag hier.

If you want to see, how cover art of H.G. Wells’ "War of the Worlds" changed through the ages, this project of Dr. Zeus is a must. Incredible ambitious.