Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Portrait - Artistic Representation of a Person


This is the portrait of my friend Nicole Oppermann I painted, it is probably the last one I did using traditional acrylic paint on canvas medium, my next series of portraits will be painted digitally. Nicole is a talented model and actress, she appeared as Sarah in the movie Stay Alive, check out her website:

[nicoleoppermann.com]

The necklace was meant to say 'kcuf', I just forgot to pay attention to that part.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Xbox 360 Overheating - Don't let It Happen


While waiting for a replacement from Microsoft I've drawn quick aerodynamic sketch (above) to see how I would prevent my next console from overheating. My temporary office is a busy place. These devices are usually powered On all at the same time, no wonder why xbox 360 showed the red ring of death. I bought the Intec G8646 stand fan to go under console and the standard fan for the room to improve air flow. I haven't received Intec G8646 yet to give opinion, you can check it on: eBay

There's a Wikipedia page about this problem: [Xbox 360 Technical Problems]

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Dizzler - Free Online Music, Video, and Radio Player


Dizzler is the new kind of online/desktop player which lets you search and listen to your favorite music, watch videos and do more for free. It's fully customizable with skins and playlists, as you can see I added my own picture which links to this blog. You can embed it to any webpage or MySpace. It indexes and streams files already available on the Internet, so if you keep stuff on your website and you don't want to share your bandwidth, check this tech writeup on how to protect files from Mp3 search engines. Otherwise enjoy free music!

Website: [dizzler.com]

Friday, June 1, 2007

Microsoft Surface - Future Greatest Art Tool



A "multi-touch, gestural- and object-recognition interface technology" almost only seen in Sci-Fi movies (Minority Report) is coming Fall 2007. I predict this will turn into useful art and design tool in addition to Wacom tablets most digital artists use today. For now it only supports basic painting program and mostly designed to enrich our social life experiences:
Name of Product: Microsoft Surface™
Category: Surface computing
Music - You put your music player on the table, and your credit card. Both are recognized, then you drag songs to the player. Zune is obvious first device, but potential other partner in the works. One demo used a nano. Could partner really be Apple?
Virtual Concierge - A fairly self explanatory guide program, complete with mapping programs
Food & Drink - Not just interactive menus, but glass (and presumably plate and maybe even silverware) recognition. Like Music program, it reads credit cards just by placing them on table.
Photo - A simple photo editor reminiscent of iPhoto
Puzzle - A game where you assemble actual pieces of glass on top of the table, each with a sliver of live video playing
Water - A water screensaver that you can touch to make ripples
Paint - Simple painting program that reads pressure sensitivity by judging the size of your fingerprint:


Microsoft's Mystery Product: [gizmodo.com]
Fact sheet from MS marketing team: [gamerscoreblog.com]
Microsoft impressive flash demo: [microsoft.com/surface]