I’m excited to note I’ve updated my Publications page with an exciting bit of work that was recently published in IEEE MultiMedia!

Helen and Heiko asked me to contribute to this article about the Nuage Vert project. Abstract included and link to IEEE article below. Check it out in your July-September issue of IEEE Multimedia or get it online (fee based).

Editor’s Note

Nuage Vert [Green Cloud] is a major environmental artwork that engages light and public participation. A stunning and important work, Nuage Vert has won many accolades and several prestigious prizes, including the 2008 Golden Nica in Hybrid Art from Ars Electronica, the 2008 Green Prix from ZeroOne, and the 2009 Award from the Environmental Art Foundation. The implementation process is particularly interesting as the team found new and successful ways to work with lasers that will benefit future artists.

—Norie Neumark

Helen Evans, Heiko Hansen, Joey Hagedorn, “Artful Media: Nuage Vert,” IEEE MultiMedia, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 13-15, July-Sept. 2009, doi:10.1109/MMUL.2009.54

I relabeled all of the bookmarks in my bookmarks bar today:

I know the usage of the symbols is non-standard, but I love looking at the beautiful text ornaments and the space efficiency. I know I’ve seen this concept somewhere else, but I just can’t remember where.

Mouse over so you may see to which link each symbol correlates.

☺

Update:
Looks like it comes from Merlin Mann circa 2004.

A while back I posted a bookmarklet (QTYouTube) to load H.264 versions of YouTube videos that the QuickTime plugin plays to avoid using Flash. It has proven very useful to some, but it turns out just recently a better solution has been introduced!

ClickToFlash version 1.4 and later includes functionality to automatically load H.264 versions of YouTube videos, without the need to do anything special.

ClickToFlash is a WebKit plugin that prevents all flash content from loading in Safari. This excellent software prevents runaway CPU usage, and if you’d like to see the Flash content, simply clicking it will cause it to load.

As of version 1.4 a feature has been incorporated to do exactly what the QTYouTube bookmarklet did, replace the flash with a QuickTime compatible H.264 video. With the default settings, control-clicking and choosing “Load h.264″ will load the QuickTime version. You can also go to the Settings (from the Safari->ClickToFlash menu) and choose “Load H.264 videos from YouTube” to automatically do everything for you.

I really want to thank Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch, Troy Gaul, and the rest of the team working on this for the excellent plugin and incorporating this feature!

Recently I had run across the megazoomer SIMBL plugin, and found that it could make a Terminal.app fullscreen! Something just wasn’t quite right about it though. The white text on the solid black background wanted to look as if I had booted in to single user mode, or started my computer with the verbose boot option on, but no font I could select seemed appropriate. So I began the hunt for the Mac OS X console font to use in Terminal.app in earnest. Eventually I found it, in the form of a C source file. All of the character bitmaps were described in an array in a file called “iso_font.c” in the XNU source. I went on an adventure to find appropriate software to make a font file, and eventually I found a rather dreadful tool called Font Forge, but it worked so I used it. I prepared my font in the BDF ASCII format with liberal application of TextWrangler’s grep based find & replace, as well as a Python script to massage it a bit more. After lots of messing with Font Forge and some tweaking of the metadata, I could export a TrueType bitmap representation of the original Mac OS X console font, which I have provided here. The font is free to use, according to comments in the file as well as the original APSL license, so I am providing it here freely as well under the same terms. Enjoy!

Note: The bitmap is 16pt; other sizes are not recommended.

Update:
Cory Klingsporn submitted an updated version that fixes issues with accented characters. Thanks Cory! Get the new version below.

Download Darwin ISO-Latin-1 Font (TrueType):

Darwin-ISO-Latin-1.zip.

Erik has released a fantastic new game billed as the following:

Oops! is a classic board game of skill, cunning, and regret. Battle against up to three highly intelligent computer opponents, or go head to head against real people in competitive network play. Taunt your enemies as you move swiftly around the board, knocking their pieces back to start on your way to glory and victory. Available exclusively for Mac OS X!

I highly recommend downloading today from the Oops! Product Page.

Just a quick test of the new iPhone Wordpress client. Seems to work. :)

I’m headed to Advanced Visual Interfaces ‘08 this summer in Naples, Italy to present the work Josh and I did on VCode + VData regarding video coding tools. I’m really proud, as it’s my first first-author!

You can download VCode and get more info about it on the Social website.

Enjoy!

Last fall I was contacted by Heiko Hansen (of HeHe) regarding using the EasyLase USB on the Mac. I must say I was quite intrigued when I found out that he was working on Nuage Vert, a visualization of energy usage in Helsinki. The project uses the cloud of emissions from the Salmisaari power plant as a canvas to demonstrate how much energy is in use by the city.

photo credit HeHe

The project is going on display February 22-29 in Helsinki. I encourage you to go check it out more in depth at www.nuagevert.org.

For the project, I ended up creating a Java wrapper for the libEasyLase driver for OS X. It is now possible to get laser output on the EasyLase USB from inside a Java app on the Mac. Please contact me if you’re interested using this.