Upular
Lovely remix of bits and pieces from Pixar’s Up. A treat to your ears!
Discover more lovely remixes at the artist’s page at last.fm, mostly available as free download.
HTML5 on YouTube
Last week I noticed HTML5 feature in YouTube was made available to the public to try. Everyone now has the option to try HTML5 video instead of relying on Flash player to playback the video.
Your web browser must support HTML5 before you can try the HTML5 video on YouTube. Safari and Chrome are among the few that support HTML5 today.
I opted and am using the HTML5 version of YouTube. I like how it doesn’t hog my processor like how Flash did.
You can try HTML5 or visit TestTube to see other interesting features on YouTube, likely to be half-baked at this moment.
Aside from video, HTML5 offers a few more interesting and useful features. An article at ReadWriteWeb summed five neat features.
Post-It Stop Motion
Here’s a cleverly designed stop motion video clip using post-it notes—or stickies as some of you know it as. I personally like the rain scene and how rain droplets fall and drip on the umbrella.
This clip is as amazing as Oren Lavie’s music video clip I posted months ago.
Rough Play
New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert suspended from the team and became an Internet celebrity after being caught on tape attacking opposing players. The footage clearly showed her anger being put into actions—physical attacks as in a cat fight: back punching, face kicking, and even hair pulling.
Read the full article from CBS News or view the clip below:
Darius Rucker
Candy Cane Christmas
Genre: Holiday
Released 30 November 2009
© 2009
Rating: 5/5 Soothing jazzy Christmas tune!
This jazzy Christmas tune is available as a time-limited free download from iTunes. I love how this song brings up the holiday mood and brightens up my day…
Spice up your music library with jazzy Christmas song like this! Happy holiday~
Hopenhagen
Hopenhagen is a movement, a moment and a chance at a new beginning. The hope that in Copenhagen this December – during the United Nations Climate Change Conference – we can build a better future for our planet and a more sustainable way of life. It is the hope that we can create a global community that will lead our leaders into making the right decisions. The promise that by solving our environmental crisis, we can solve our economic crisis at the same time.
Hopenhagen is change – and that change will be powered by all of us.
I’ve written my hope in Hopenhagen, just a few days before the United Nations Climate Change Conference takes place on 7 December 2009. Have you?
Katharine McPhee
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Genre: Holiday
Released 17 November 2009
© 2009 The Verve Music Group
Rating: 5/5 Perfect voice for Christmas.
This song is available as a free download from iTunes. Grab it while it’s free! Not convinced yet? Check out her live performance:
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to tell your loved ones that you’ll be home for Christmas.
World AIDS Day 2009
Join the (RED) movement to give people the opportunity of a future where once there was no hope. Show your support and help fight AIDS in Africa by educating yourself of the issue and spreading the words:
- Use this as your Facebook profile photo. Let your friends know you’re part of the (RED) movement.
- Tweet about JoinRed. Your followers may learn something new about AIDS today.
- Watch videos from JoinRed YouTube channel and see how much you can change their lives.
- Show support at these supporting organizations: JoinRed.com or Google.org.
- And for everyone to create a conducive environment for people with HIV; Read common myths about HIV and help to get rid of the stigma.
Google Wave
I’ve been busy crunching numbers and digesting journals in the recent weeks, so much that I didn’t have much time to open Google Wave invitation that has been sitting idle in my inbox for long. Well, today I did, after the majority of my loads are off of the list.
Google Wave’s fun factor depends on the number of friends (or family and colleagues) you have in your contact list. Only those with Google Wave account can hop on your communication wagon.
The interface design is pretty good, but it is still not intuitive enough for beginners to discover what they can do with it and how to do it. Perhaps mimicking typical email interface to something that is revolved around the complexity of Google Wave isn’t a good idea afterall.
Judging by the performance, Google Wave isn’t that great when it’s running on my Safari; It ran slower as soon as I opened Google Wave. Aside from that, there’s really nothing much to comment at this moment…
Still, Google Wave is an interesting communication concept that works pretty decent at its preview stage; It worth trying and exploring. I feel excited imagining a streamlined communication and collaboration for work and leisure. Not to mention the amount of reducible paperwork if this streamlined communication works well.
Why don’t you take Google Wave a spin yourself and see how you like it? I do still have some Google Wave preview invitations left. Drop me a line if you wanna get one.
If you know fun ways to use Google Wave, drop me a line, leave a comment below, or wave me directly.
Projects
Overview of projects that have been keeping me busy lately:
1. Human-Computer Interaction CS3240
The first project up on the list is ShuttleNet, an interactive kiosk displaying shuttle bus arrival information, route, schedule, and map. This interactive application is built using Flash from scratch with user-centered approach—gathering input from the users during design phase and continue involving them in usability tests in implementation phase.
The result? An attractive interactive system that works the way users expect it to be, effectively delivering information in a visually pleasing manner.
