Marc Köhlbrugge

Skitch, a review

July 15th, 2007

ot invited to the beta of <a href="http://www.myskitch.com/">mySkitch</a> and it’s accompanying Skitch application. I also was asked to review it, so here it goes..

First of all, you should know Skitch and mySkitch are two different things. Skitch is an application to edit and create pictures while mySkitch is the online webservice to share those creations. Current mySkitch is very limited and there’s not much to tell about other than the fact it will allow you to share your creations in the near future. Skitch, on the other hand, has plenty features and except for the few bugs looks ready for the public.

Skitch is primarily meant for editting existing images instead of creating new ones. You can edit files at your harddisk or easily created (cropped) screenshots which are immediately loaded into the program. When you choose this option Skitch automatically minimize so it doesn’t get in the way when taking the screenshot. After you’ve taken the screenshot Skitch automatically reappears ready for you to edit the screenshot.

The edit options are somewhat limited; I wouldn’t say it’s comparable with Paint but it doesn’t have a lot more drawing-features. Everything you draw is a vector and the way everything works like Adobe Illustrator’s <em>LivePaint</em> which let’s you <em>fill</em> a shape that may not be an original vector object but is created when two (or more) objects are combined. A bit hard to explain but very handy nonetheless.
Besides the basic drawing tools like the paintbrush, rectangle, etc.. Skitch also has a list of frequently used commands like rotating and mirroring your image.

And last, but nog the least, the save options. Or maybe I should say Publish options since publishing your end result to mySkitch is the primary option to save. Other options like FTP are available too.

I think Skitch is primarily helpfull for bloggers who want an easy way to use images from the web or harddisk, do some basic modifications and publish them to their blog.

I still have one invitation left so leave a comment if you would like to have it.

Posted in software, skitch, review | 2 Comments »

Mail.app: Placing your signature above quoted text

July 15th, 2007

Mail.app’s signature feature is an easy way to add a signature to every outgoing email. However when replying to a message the signature would be added to the very bottom of the message instead of before the quoted message.

Today I noticed Apple has fixed this issue by adding an option to place your signature above the quoted text. It can be found in the preferences in the Signatures-tab.

I’m not sure when this feature was added but I remember checking the Preferences-window including searching the internet and couldn’t find a solution so I guess they added it recently within a software update.

Posted in software, mailapp, mac | No Comments »

Google won’t filter search results!

May 24th, 2007

There’s a discussion going on at Digg.com about Google punishing Made-For-Adsense websites.

The title of the story suggests Google will filter all websites that have loads of ads and little content. However, if you read the article closely you will understand this is not the case.

Google is only punishing websites that have loads of Google Ads (using the Google Adsense program) which are advertised themselfs at Google (using Google Adwords).

So this basically means you won’t find any ads for MFA-sites on the Google site but you may still find them in the search results. (which is very unlikely to happen because of the little content).

I may be wrong but this is what I make of it. I guess we will have to wait for an official announcement.

Digg This

Posted in digg, google, adsense, adwords | No Comments »

PTP, a different way of connecting your digital camera

May 23rd, 2007

While creating an Automator action for uploading screenshots to Flickr I came across the term PTP. After some research I learned PTP (which stands for Picture Transfer Protocol) is a protocol for connecting your Digital Photo Camera via USB.

Normally when you attach a camera via USB the camera will be recognized as a USB Mass Storage Device and your camera (or memory card if you want) will be mounted to your desktop. The problem with this is you have to manually unmount the USB Mass Storage Device in order to prevent the risk of data loss.

However, with PTP this problem is gone. When you set your camera to use PTP it will not be mounted on your desktop but will still be accessible by programs like iPhoto.

So if you reguarly connect and disconnect your camera try using PTP (if your camera supports it) and you won’t be nagged by those “USB Device was unsafely removed, blah blah” errors.

Let me know how it works out for you!

PS
I haven’t tried this on Windows (or Linux) but according to Wikipedia Windows should support it and I’m sure Linux does too perhaps with some extra software.

Posted in photography, software, hardware | 3 Comments »

Announcing Oozd.com - The About:Blank Alternative

May 15th, 2007

I’ve always used about:blank as my home page because I don’t want to load a whole website everytime I open up a new browser window. This approach worked pretty well but the one thing I didn’t like about it is the fact the about:blank page is completely white and I wanted it to be black. I find it easier on the eyes.

So hereby I announce Oozd.com, The About:Blank Alternative. Just suffix oozd.com/ with the color you like to use and you have your own colorful about:blank. Some examples:

Oozd supports normal english color names (e.g. red) and hexidecimal values (e.g. f00 and ff0000). Support for RGB (e.g. 255,0,0) is coming soon as some other features will.

Posted in project | No Comments »

Digg API released

April 20th, 2007

Today Digg released their API:

The Digg Application Programming Interface (API) has been created to let users and partners interact programmatically with Digg. The API returns Digg data in a form that can be easily integrated into an application or a web site.

I had a quick look at the API documentation and it looks like the API is pretty well-designed. The available information is pretty slick too.

I’m planning on experimenting with it this weekend so expect some Digg related tools soon!

Posted in digg, project, api, webdevelopment | No Comments »

New (temporary) design

April 9th, 2007

As returning visitors may know I have been using the default Wordpress theme since I started this weblog. Since today however, I’m using a modified version of Phu Ly’s excellent Treba theme.

As soon as I get some spare time I will create my own custom theme, but I think this new theme works pretty well too.

Posted in weblog, webdesign, wordpress | No Comments »

My (mt) MediaTemple experience so far

April 9th, 2007

As some of you might know I’m hosting at MediaTemple for about a week now. I went for a GridServer which normally costs about US$200 a year. I got 50% off using the coupon code surfstation.

Ordering

Signing up was pretty straight forward. It looked like they didn’t support Paypal but after an email to MT support I got an email with explanations how to pay using Paypal nevertheless.

The Control Panel

The GridServer doesn’t come with a Plesk controlpanel but with a custom one. Overall it’s pretty self-explanatory and with the help of the MT KnowledgeBase I didn’t encounter many problems.
One thing I should notice however, is the fact the control panel is originally meant for one website. It’s possible to add several domains (I’m using about 25 at the moment) but you get only one controlpanel. Some options can be changed for every domain, some options are system-wide. If you’re hosting several big websites I wouldn’t go for the GridServer.

Support

I encountered several problems which were mostly my own fault for not paying attention to the notices I got when adding domains. I have filed a couple of tickets and the average response time was about 18 hour which I think is pretty long. They do have a knowledgebase however which covers a lot of problems.

Downtime

I haven’t experienced any downtime yet.

Conclusion

A couple of friends told me MediaTemple gives free hosting to design companies and the like, that’s why you find their logo at every design site. Also, these websites get better support so they let their visitors know how great MediaTemple is, although it’s just a normal webhost like any other.

I still have a couple of weeks to go before my 30-day money-back guarantee expires and I’m not quite sure what to do. I will post here again when I have made my decision.

Posted in mediatemple, webhost | 3 Comments »

OpenKarma, combining OpenID and karma

April 4th, 2007

In his post Blogging is broken Ryan Carson makes a valid point about blogs, large ones in particular. Basically he writes that once a blog gets too big, trolls will be able to slip in and out unnoticed. You see this all over the internet, whenever a website gets very popular a lot of negative things come with it too.

Aaron Dragushan comments with the suggestion of using a karma system. I think this is an excellent idea and I think it wouldn’t be to hard to implement using OpenID.

All you have to do is creating a system which relates OpenIDs with karma. Let’s call the system OpenKarma for now. The karma of an OpenID can be requested by everyone using a simple API and every OpenID can add or remove karma to another OpenID. This way website owners can choose, for example, to only allow OpenIDs with positive karma to log in and post a comment. The possibilities are endless.

A scenario for some clearity:

You create an OpenID and visit the OpenKarma site. You log in with your OpenID and complete a basic verification process like CAPTCHA to verify you are a real person. Successful completion gives you your first 100 positive karma points.

Now, when you visit a blog which is OpenKarma enabled you login at the blog , the blog will verify you have enough positive karma to proceed and you will be able to post a comment.

A couple of hours later another visitor visits the same blog and reads your comment. He likes your comment and clicks the “add karma” which immediately improves your karma. OpenKarma records all these karma transactions and your karma is calculated based on the karma of the people who gave you karma. It may sound a bit complicated but basically it’s the same way Google’s PageRank works.

There are probably a couple of problems this approach and the biggest one is probably the fact it’s a centralized solution which means if that one company gets all evil on us, we’re doomed. So find a way to decentralize it and implement it and you may have found yourself a company.

Posted in openid, karma, ideas | 2 Comments »

In case you were wondering..

April 4th, 2007

In case you were wondering who I am, here is some basic information:

19/male/netherlands

Occupation

Student @ Communication & Multimedia Design
Freelance webdeveloper & graphic designer in my spare time (portfolio coming soon)

Interests

Graphic Design; Interaction Design; Coding; Web-standards; Psychology; Concept Development

Favorite Movies & Television series

Pulp Fiction; The Matrix Trilogy; The Godfather Trilogy; Scarface; Lost; Prison Break; Heroes

Favorite Books

Brendan Dawes’ Analog In, Digital Out; Clotaire Rapaille’sThe Culture Code; Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink; CSS Mastery

Favourite Software

Mac OS X; Textmate; Newsfire; Pzizz; iTunes; Safari; Adium; Transmit

Posted in weblog, personal | No Comments »

Marc Köhlbrugge

Skitch, a review

July 15th, 2007

Mail.app: Placing your signature above quoted text

July 15th, 2007

Google won’t filter search results!

May 24th, 2007

PTP, a different way of connecting your digital camera

May 23rd, 2007

Announcing Oozd.com - The About:Blank Alternative

May 15th, 2007

Digg API released

April 20th, 2007

New (temporary) design

April 9th, 2007

My (mt) MediaTemple experience so far

April 9th, 2007

Ordering

The Control Panel

Support

Downtime

Conclusion

OpenKarma, combining OpenID and karma

April 4th, 2007

In case you were wondering..

April 4th, 2007

Occupation

Interests

Favorite Movies & Television series

Favorite Books

Favorite Music

Favorite Podcasts

Favourite Blogs & Websites

Favourite Software

Pages

Categories

Archives