Stephen Ross Scott ™

What not to do with a Forklift...

Look, it's long[ish], it's in German [with English subtitles], but worth every minute. Don't skip to the end, as this has a dark sense of humour that builds throughout. Genius.

Labels: humour, Recommended, Video

Five star simple software #5: Ashampoo Burn Studio

To me it's rare in software when things just work as you really need them to, and that's the point of this not very regular spotlight series. You may have many pieces of burning software installed and often vying for attention, particularly if you have a new machine. [Nero, Roxio trials anyone?]

However this is free, simple, light, and comes with the ability to burn just about anything. Cd, DVD, even Blu-Ray discs are on offer. With enough tweaks under the hood for those that need it, but clean enough for newbies, it does an excellent job, and makes sure you don't end up producing DVD coasters.

Completely Free, no spyware, simple, and...just works. Enough said.

Labels: Recommended, Simplicity, Software, Usability

Picasa 3.0, It's all grown up and groovy.

A five star price of software I've mentioned many times before, Picasa, has had a massive update. Overshadowed by the equally uber cool Google Chrome, Picasa 3, brings features that truly wipe the floor [and walls] with many paid for offerings out there. A new, mega idiot proof red eye feature, video editing, syncing free web albums, face tagging, image previewer, the list goes on. It's a monster release, and all for $0.00.

Check the whats updated video, their great blog or click the title link and just download and have a blast with one of my all time essential favorites.

Labels: Photography, Recommended, Simplicity, Software, Video

Ideas worth spreading...

Over the years, one site whose content I've continually found to be nothing but always inspiring and thought provoking, [that's no small feat!] is TED. Focusing on Technology, Entertainment & Design, Ted is an annual gathering which has pulled in people from all over the globe, and from all walks of life. What's produced, is some deeply inspiring talks and information on a huge variety of subjects related to the TED theme. With reams of content released regularly, and with each talk fairly brief, this is certainly no death by PowerPoint. I've referenced many times before a TED talk on simplicity by John Maeda which you'll find on the home page of my site, however, I've pulled a few more recent highlights below. Make sure you bring some TED in to your life by visiting the site, or catching up with their TED talks RSS feed.


Find out more about Ted by clicking this posts title, or viewing some recent favourites of mine below:

Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

J.J Abrahams: Mystery box

Alison Jackson: A surprising look at celebrity

Labels: Design, humour, Recommended, Simplicity, Video

Five star simple software #4: Ant Renamer

If your doing some organising of your digital files, you'll invariably come across piles of music , photos or other items that from a naming point of view aren't named correctly, are misspelled or just plain all over the place with no structures or order. With better things to do with your time I'm sure than name each item one by one, help is at hand with the Swiss army knife like, 'Ant Renamer' from Ant Software.

Allowing you to rename files or folders in one go, or rename/remove extensions, change case, delete characters en masse from any part of the file name, even use mp3 meta data info to rename the file, and much more. You might not use it every day for sure, but when you want something to just simply do what it says it will, and save you a load of time, this is one of those great little apps that's just indispensable.

100% Free, with no nags or spyware.

Labels: Recommended, Simplicity, Software, Usability

Shameless Self Publicity.

Run, walk, or maneuver yourself to the nearest magazine emporium to get your fabulous new copy of .Net Magazine [Branded as Practical Web Design In Australia & the USA/Canada]. Why? To see yours truly of course in the twelve page* in depth interview as a showcase on web talent and good design.

Worth every penny [even without me in it] it'll not only give you the latest world wide web trends and news, but interviews, step by step guides, and a free CD every month with some [mostly] decent software and free training videos. Essential reading for web heads.

* slight exaggeration

Labels: Design, Recommended

Rooftop Cinema, Melbourne

One of the best experiences I've had since coming to Melbourne has been to enjoy a movie outside, high up amongst the city's skyscrapers. The Rooftop Cinema is only accessible by a heart attack inducing amount of stairs, or via the wobbly, and decidely dodgy, tiny, polly pocket sized elevator.

The views at the top however are well worth it, as is the great sound, screen, and bar. With faux grass and deck chairs for seating, this is one unique experience.

Click this post's title or the link below to view photo's.

Rooftop Cinema - Picasa

Labels: Misc., Recommended, Travel

Five star simple software #3: SyncBack

Making backups is often something many don't think about, or make the time to do. Until of course the day that it all goes pear shaped, and you wish you'd done something about it. I'm an efficiently geeky kinda guy, so I try and do this regularly, and I've tried many different types of back up software. I don't want, or truly need anything complex, don't want real time back up, I just want it to back up all my stuff, when I say, from place A to B, end of story.

Simple you'd think to get software for this, but many just don't do what you want. They either limit you, or charge a fortune to do something basic. By default Windows 2000, XP & Vista have their own offerings, but none cut it for me. I was close to giving up, especially after a disastrous attempt at the other offering from Microsoft called Sync Powertoy. However the only 'power' involved was the waste of power I used in testing it out. Firstly having to validate my copy of Windows, then to be told I can only download it if I use Internet Explorer. Nice guys. Stupidly, I persevered, but the app itself has easily breakable logic behind the so called syncing, so I ended up with multiples of the same files, and worse still, it deleted some which were perfectly legitimate. Awful, awful, piece of software. And I only bash Microsoft here in the hope you avoid this, and try out the real piece of five star software...

...Which is by a company called 2Bright Sparks. Their offering is called SyncBack, and is a fantastic, light, and simple application, that just works, and very well at that. The logic, layout and overall experience of using it, is simplicity itself. Admittedly, the first time you set up a profile for the sync to run, you have to think carefully about the process and set options, but once done, it works like a dream, and simply does what it says on the tin. The paid version comes with more features than I think I would ever use, and I find their older freeware version: SyncBack Freeware V3.2.14 [Click for a direct link to the file] to be more than adequate, with full reporting, and plenty of other options to get advanced, should you wish, its pretty perfect. Click the title to go their main download page with all their products, or visit the direct link just above to get straight to the freeware version.

Simple, it works, and free. Now go get backing up.

Labels: Recommended, Simplicity, Software, Usability

Wired. Geek .Net. Inspirational magazines...

In all my many years of working in the web world, I'd never have had half the success I've had, if I wasn't continually inspired by whats out there on the web. However even I can only look at a screen for so long every day, so one other source of inspiration for me is, in this case, magazines. Three real favourites of mine are;

• 'Wired' magazine which is a veritable melting pot of all things geek, science, tech, pop culture, and a pinch of anything goes, makes this my absolute favourite every month. Always one article [if not more] every month that will literally blow your mind.
  



• 'Geek' is a relative newcomer, with just under a years issues and is improving steadily with each issue. Covering very similar ground to Wired, it's less of the science, and more focus on media and gadgets. Still it manages in a crowded market to stand out and have some excellent editorial content, and seems to cover some very appealing topics.



• '.net' is a magazine I've read since day one, [still called Practical Web Design in Australia & the USA] but several years ago this magazine went through a massive excellent transformation, and became without a doubt the premier, worldwide magazine out there, for anyone involved in developing, designing or just involved in the world of web. With tutorials, in depth articles and some excellent editorial from real web heroes throughout, it's another accessible, inspirational, essential read in simplifying and demystifying the world of web.
  
  So with a bit of shameless self publicity here, I'm throughly chuffed to bits to be appearing in the March 2008 [on sale Feb 8th] edition of .net magazine, in a short feature on reader sites, of which this one, www.stephenrossscott.com will be one.
  
  Pick up a copy of any of the above magazines if you have an interest in the web, I guarantee you you'll get something from one of these excellent, inspirational titles.
  

Labels: Design, Recommended, Simplicity

Five Star Simple Software: #2 Picasa.

I'm a Google fanboy, sure I admit it. Regardless though, this software deserves a major mention.Picasa is a Photo and Movie manager and does so much I just couldn't cover it all here, but it's good enough that even Microsoft & Adobe have tried [in vain] to bring similar offerings to the table, such as Windows Vista's Photo Manager [Make that 'Photo Mangler'-try it, you'll see what I mean] & the utterly pointless, severely hobbled, nagging at every turn, Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. What a spectacular train wreck of software that is.

Both Microsoft & Adobe's efforts are a pale comparison though to Picasa and make managing your media a turgid, complex, enthusiasm zapping experience from start to finish, and will nag you to pay to upgrade the software regularly, or buy photos from their sources online [and normally only in the USA] at most turns. Both are clunky, overly complex and no fun at all.

All praise then to Picasa then which from the word go, is simply, simple. The install is clean and informative enough for all levels, and intuitive enough to find and catalogue your photos & movie media automatically should you let it. From there on in you have support for TIF, JPG, GIF, PSD, MPG, AVI, ASF, WMV, MOV & more. [As if you'll need more]

The usability of it really stands out, and I've met people from 14 to 65 who've all said they love it. And it's the easiest way to share photos with friends and family out there, because aside from the numerous photo touch up tools, slide shows, wallpaper makers, gift cd's, back up facilities and more, the most recent addition to Picasa is what makes it stand out from the crowd.

Free 1Gigabyte Web albums.

Previously even a fairly awkward thing to do for many, even with web skills, and so for most people it was nigh on impossible to get their photos up on the web. With Picasa it's two or three clicks. Literally. Everything else is automated. And before you know it, your photos you want to share are on the web on your own clear, memorable and useful web address such as: http://picasaweb.google.com/yourname

Now try doing this in Microsoft's offerings and your on to an unusable, almost never ending, indecipherable web address. Not friendly at all. [Adobe have no web offering as yet]. Another hidden Picasa gem is to get your friends to add you as a Picasa favourite [one simple click on your Picasa web page] and then every time they add a photo or album you get an email to let you know. All of which is fully editable and controllable. You can even have the option to allow people to download the entire set of your photos' to their Picasa in one click. Now thats sharing. And incredibly simple to do.

I could spend all day on how good this software is, as many of my my friends and family will testify, but if you haven't tried it, get on it, you wont regret it. After all taking photo's is great, but sharing them is half the fun.

Picasa is 100% free, Web Albums have 1Gigabyte of free online storage.

Labels: Photography, Recommended, Simplicity, Software, Usability

Five Star Simple Software: #1 Gom Player.

The first of a long promised series of software recommendations, where I'll highlight the picks I've found in my travels and experiences online. As we all seem to get more time poor these days I just don't have time for software unless it sticks core guidelines that tend to be along the lines of;

1. Simplicity, in design, operation & usage.
   
2. Lightweight in file size & processor usage.
3. Just get the job done well
   
4. No sneakiness. So thats no nagging or overtaking your system. [A la' usual suspects Adobe, iTunes/Quicktime & Real Player.] So that means no making useless folders in your 'My Documents' or shares or phoning home.
   
   
   

So up first, the unusually named GOM player. While most people have Windows Media player or Quicktime by default on their platform, why do you need one more? Well, probably because the other two try painfully hard to be the center of attention on your system. Both are large in file size [Quicktime needs a diet for sure], one prompts you to have a license just to listen to your music, or the other hogs your system tray and asks you pay to do anything other than basic features. No thanks.

With those two trying to compete and hog your system whenever they can, it's a breath of fresh air with software that just does as it says on the tin. Being the 'Computer guy' amongst many family and friends, I've throughly road tested this for over a year on many different machines. To date I've heard zero complaints. As the Gom player site says, its free, light and just works. No spyware or ads, and with some excellent features such as intuitively playing the next file in alpha/numerical order such as a tv series your watching, and also finding the codec you need, without you having to all the work.

With an excellent set up process, and enough advanced features there for those that want to get technical with it, it makes it a great all rounder for everyone. It keeps its interface, simple, clean, and effective. Playing MP3,WMA,OGG and most other music formats as well as XviD, DivX, FLV, MP4, H263, MOV [sadly you'll still need Quicktime or Quicktime alternative as its a closed codec to get .MOV's thorugh it] but once done, it truly is one app for the lot. With low CPU usage, skins should you need them, and much more, this is one of those essentials I install on every machine.

Oh yeah, it's also 100% free.

Labels: Recommended, Simplicity, Software, Usability

'THE' Media Mack Daddy turns ten.

A huge part of my life is spent listening to music and like Frank Sinatra, I want it 'My Way'. After all, is it too much to ask that media players just simply play your music your way, and don't try to make DRM licences for your tracks, or change from MP3 to their proprietary format, or try to decide for you that in their [never any good] wisdom, they should rearrange and re-label all your music?

I've truly tried them all many a time, and there are many good media players out there, and some awful ones [here's looking at you iTunes], but I've always returned to WinAmp.

It's been ten years since it's birth, and in honour of that, it's got a new lick of paint and some spanking new features to boot. Click the post link above to get the goodness.

Labels: Music, Recommended

Shock to the system.

Not as big a fan of gaming as some friends of mine, I still love the escapism and design of a good video game. So it reeaaally takes something pretty special to catch my attention. Enter 'BioShock'. With a highly detailed, 1950's art deco design, and a movie like immersive quality, this is one rare and beautiful piece of design, with influences of 'Lost' & 'The Shining' to name a few.

Hyped for months, and deservedly so, it's already been recommended to me several times, and the demo only appeared this week alone. Great design, with a pretty gripping story too. Get some wallpapers and other items, as well as a flavour of the 50's style in this posts title. Try it if you can, the price of admission alone, is worth every penny, if even for just the 20 odd minutes worth of movie like introduction alone. You'll be shocked how good this is...

Labels: Gaming, Recommended

Save Money. Avoid the British & be a Heroe.

Heroes is probably one of the best shows in television of recent years, and so no surprise the DVD is a pretty big media affair. Unfortunately, if you live in in 'Rip Off Britain' as the media have called it for years, you should know you'll pay more, get less, have poorer quality packaging, and now as the trend seems to be, [only in Britain] is to be expected to pay twice?

• Buy it in the US and it's the complete season, all for the British equivalent of app. £19.
• Buy it in the UK, and your DVD set will be labeled 'Part One' [half the season] for £27. So buying two 'parts' means a whopping £54, just shy of three times the US cost. There is a [less advertised] complete set available several months after the parts 1 & 2 release for £42, but this is still double what the US are paying.
  

Okay, so USA & UK price comparisons are not new, as are other other economic & shipping discussions around this. The point here though, is this relatively new way the TV studios blatantly, & unashamedly, split UK releases and milk the British public that annoys so much. The answer, simply don't buy British, because like an earlier post I made...a fool and their money are easily parted.

Labels: Finance, Recommended, TV

"Held together with chewing gum & string binding..."

A quote from the excellent, award winning documentary "Maxed Out" on the state of the USA's finances, and the continual efforts by large financial corporations and the Bush administration to disavow it's existence. As entertainment weekly says 'documentaries are the new black', and for good reason when they are as sharp, and affecting as this. Whether you live in the US or not, it's still able to make your jaw drop at the lengths some financial corporations big and small, and those in the debt market are willing to go in the morally questionable pursuit of yet more money.

Far better than it's trailer hints, it's excellent editing and 'cast' bring light to a subject many want kept in the dark. Queen/Bowie's 'Under Pressure', used at the opening & close, obviously chosen well, is truly haunting when you hear some of the harrowing incidents throughout the film. Click the post title to view the trailer.

Labels: Recommended, Trailers

Copycats.

One thing thats definitely not simple, and is going to remain immensely complex for some time to come, [principally due to the volume of cash involved in it's old school business model] is copyright law. Most of us don't think twice about it, but thankfully someone is trying to simplify it, by getting the 'pirates' vs. the corporations together on film.

"Good Copy Bad Copy", is a truly excellent documentary exposing a lot of myths and truths about copyright & culture. Interviews with Dangermouse [most famous as one half of Gnarls Barkley] & the Pirate Bay team, to name a few, make this a well researched and entertaining, free, & legal download. Click this posts link to find out more.

Labels: Recommended, Video

'Anything', Worm Poop, Gym Games, 'Whatever'.

A pretty strange title for this post, I'll give you that.

However all the above are in fact, new business ideas, as reported by a real favourite site of mine for many years called Springwise. [Thanks Blakey] Anything goes in this world and Springwise continually surf the waves of entrepreneurial innovation, and report these findings. You'll find updates available via RSS, and via their very neat, weekly newsletter.

Take a browse through the site, I can guarantee you'll find some amazingly fresh, inspirational and unique ideas. Even Worm poop has to get reported somewhere...

Labels: Recommended