The Island

Alias is one of my favorite shows and Channel 4 has finally announced that Lost (created by J.J. Abrams) will begin transmission this summer. The UK network is serious about its newest acquisition. A theatrical campaign is in circulation. The popularity of Lost in the US is such that a UMD release for PSP has been announced to coincide with the R1 S1 DVD set.

The Best of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (10 Episode Collector's Edition) (1983) is released tomorrow and no self-respecting '80s child should be without it! Review in progress.

Hotel Paper

In 2003, and as part of an overhaul of my site, I updated the production analysis for December Duet (1996); repurposing the essay for online distribution as an Adobe PDF. The inspiration to add a foreword was derived from The Art of Star Wars, Episode II - Attack of the Clones by Mark Vaz. I'm now making it available via rich media feed here.

Since 1996, digital media has entered mainstream consumer consciousness. RSS (a "pull" technology) potentially offers content authors the ability to manage and monetize their own multimedia broadband channels with an enviable audience reach. This is a paradigm shift from old media distribution and embraces vertical integration.

This Is How We Do It

Welcome iTunes. I've submitted my podcast to the premiere player and here's the new look cover art.



A consistent image is an essential prerequisite for a brand and any smooth t-shirt in the making!

Thanks to FeedBurner for their superlative technical support. If you've subscribed via Atom, and wish to continue receiving the feed, please update your subscription to FeedBurner.

Capital in chaos

It would be remiss of me not to comment on the tragedy that befell central London, our capital city, this morning. I have family and friends who live in and around the capital, and want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has mailed me imparting their heartfelt thoughts and prayers.

To my fellow journalists at the BBC, Reuters and Sky. Your courageous coverage, of the unfolding chaos, upholds the very best traditions of reportage.

Bells & Whistles

Reburnt and resynced my FeedBurner Feed and added Feed Image Burner. This should display the following promotional GIF in popular RSS Readers.



iPodderX is now downloading and updating posts correctly again. Safari 1.3 (and above) and Opera 8.0x browsers continue to 'leak' hyperlink code into the RSS Reader sidebar (formerly Post Editor). The latter's page rendering is now comestically pleasing.

Looking forward. iTunes Music Store podcast publishing elements should be fully integrated as early as this weekend.

The Net

Undertook further research into adding enclosures to Blogger and learnt that the link feature was insufficient! Had to copy the additional code into the template. I then tested 'Add a Subscription Feed' in iPodderX. The application transparently found and downloaded the video file from the appropriate post. NetNewsWire is also game.

Finally got around to displaying 10 posts on the main page (in parity with Recent Entries sidebar). Still have a few minor code creases to iron out, both here and on The Scratching Post. Will the toils of my labour bear fruit?

Wired

Now that the FeedBurner code has been up and running since Friday afternoon, there's no time like the present to test the new podcast facility. This QuickTime video was created using Bryce, Photoshop and iMovie.

iPodderX is a popular application that handles audio, video and image feeds. Windows users please download jPodder.

Added a Bloglines subscription feed to the Syndication sidebar.

Yosemite National Park

Happy Fourth of July to my US readers and Nick Smith. Have a great day, but don't forget those Amity Island sharks!

Currently testing Deer Park! What's this? Deer Park is the codename for the Firefox 1.1 Alpha release.

Alone in Kyoto

Whilst watching Lost in Translation's impressionistic 'Alone in Kyoto' montage, I had an epiphany! In the summer of 2000 I began reading 3Dworld and briefly made the acquaintance of a Mac User, who had returned to the UK after teaching English in Japan and was an accomplished 3D artist. 3Dworld's inclusion of Metacreation's Bryce 3.x, a 3-D landscape generation application, reignited further self development within the flourishing CGI arena.

For two years Bryce was the platform from which I revived my video game artworker ambitions (Codemasters interviewed me in 1998). When I fully transitioned to Mac OS X 10.x, invariably use of Classic ceased. Bryce was consigned to a similar fate and I devoted my creative energies to web design.

Metacreations sold the application to Corel and its future was uncertain! Now with the release of Bryce 5.5 (DAZ Productions) my interest is renewed afresh. The latest version boasts enhanced OpenGL support for Macs running an nVIDIA GPU.

Somewhat serendipitous, I discovered that Scarlett Johansson is Jewish!

Andy Warhol

Last night I had a bit of free time and whipped-up a possible cover (based on iTunes recommended specifications - 170 x 170 pixels square at 72 dpi) for a podcast demo (taken from my video major December Duet, 1996).



The original December Duet video cover wasn't archived as a photoshop file (and, if so, it was deleted long ago), therefore I traced the original Frankenstein font (from Corel) and approximated the color.

To facilitate future podcasts, I've added FeedBurner and new content aggregators to the blog. On May 14 2004 my FeedBurner account was created and there was no impetus to incorporate the feature until now. OK, I was a blog newbie and the code was outside my comfort zone.

Thanks to those friends who submitted browser display feedback. Safari 1.3 (and later) leverages new WebCore frameworks, and this is causing cosmetic problems with the Syndication sidebar. I've sent a bug report to Apple. Please use Firefox.

Do you Yahoo! 360°?