Ryan Feeley

Loving and hating the Popcorn Hour

ryan — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:43:35 +0000

The Popcorn Hour A-100 is a wholly remarkable media player that I have been enjoying for the past few months. It plays just about any digital format you can throw at it, including 1080p video. But what’s most remarkable about the Popcorn Hour is its price — $179 USD + shipping.

I will state up front that, as an interface designer, I find the UI to be as terrible as any DVD player I’ve ever used. And if you’re as prone to configuration problems as I am, there isn’t any documentation to speak of, so you are left to the mercy of their chaotic forums.

Once running, the device, which can house its own hard drive and stream content from over the network, plays media incredibly well and improves with each firmware upgrade. If it’s connected to the internet, firmware updates are easily applied from the admin interface.

Also built into the device is a Torrent client, and as of the latest firmware upgrade, a Linux-based Usenet client called NZBget.

Recently the Popcorn Hour people released the A-110 which costs $35 more but addresses most of the firmware concerns I had with the A-100. Surprisingly it fails to add gigabit ethernet. Guys, why cheap out?

Bye bye craigslist

ryan — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:00:29 +0000

I appreciate the minimalist route craigslist has taken. I do. They have a desire to keep their team very small which means that some of the niceties you would expect from a bulletin board are lacking. Oddly this 1996-style of site has helped them penetrate the mainstream far deeper than nickel-and-dime-you-to-death eBay ever will.

For a long while I have been using ByeByeList which presents results from craigslist searches in thumbnail view. A great way to separate the wheat from the chaff. And even though it says alpha, I’ve only ever experienced a downtime once. Enjoy it!

New use for the Favicon

ryan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:18:34 +0000

Ever notice the little icon that resides in the address bar beside the domain name? They are called Favicons, and while this blog doesn’t currently have one, but most sites do. They are usually just miniature versions of the sites logo.

We came up with something pretty neat for TinEye, the image-based search engine. Because queries are images, and not text, users could not easily distinguish between tabs with the title.

So for the results pages, we removed the Idée logo and made the favicon dynamic based on the query image.

And as an added bonus, it works well visual aid for search history in the History menu.

Eastbound Subway

ryan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:12:13 +0000

A frontrow seat on an eastbound TTC subway ride from the Bathurst to Greenwood.

One frame every two seconds, handheld and all super-8y. I must get one of those plunger-style tripods because stuck to the door window and covered in black is probably a better way to capture the dark tunnel.

Queen East Commute - South Facing

ryan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:11:32 +0000

Another westbound ride from the east side: before Jones to Sherbourne on Toronto’s famous 501 Queen car. This time south-facing and without interruption.

Feel free to embed and distribute on your blog just like the other one. If you’re curious as to how it was made, I used the movie timelapse mode of my Canon Powershot SD850 IS.

Shady UI

ryan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:10:52 +0000

Kind of funny how OS X looks when you open a few dozen EPS files at a time. Shadow on shadow on shadow.

Queen East Commute

ryan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:31:20 +0000

A westbound ride from the east side: Jones to Sherbourne on Toronto’s famous 501 Queen car.

One frame per second with a bit missing from the middle when I readjusted the camera. Check the last few frames for the guy near Sherbourne spotting the camera and then ducking.

Back the !*@# up

ryan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:45:57 +0000

During last week’s heat wave my iMac began to act really strangely. Hiccups appeared, slowdowns took hold and eventually video artefacts scrambled the entire screen. I connected my recently replaced backup drive and Time Machine kicked in. I took this photo which kind of reminds me of when action movie stars walk away all nonchalantly from explosions.

The backup was successful and oddly, once the heatwave died down, the iMac returned to normal. I’m only halfway through my warranty, but I know that I will soon have to haul all twenty-four inches of it in for repair.

Quantifying Feedback

ryan — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:02:32 +0000

One of the challenges companies face when they are developing a new product is incorporating user feedback into development. It’s often easy to get users to describe what they would like to see in a product, but when the suggestions number into the hundreds, and in Google’s case, the thousands, triaging the feedback becomes a nightmare.

This morning I was frustrated by Google Calendar’s colouring scheme. I can select a similars colours for calendars that are related, which is great, but for some strange reason the calendars I maintain are more pale than the calendars I subscribe to. That means visually my calendars are less important than other people’s calendars. Depending on the path you have chosen for your life, this is a problem. I decided to submit some feedback and came across this feedback page:

Partial screenshot of Google Calendar quanitifiable feedback page

While there was a option to suggest “Customize Google Calendar’s color scheme”, my feedback was more specific than this. But in a way it did allow me to express a problem which can be addressed by a redesign of the colour selection. It’s an interesting route to take when you are faced with an unmanageable amount of valuable feedback.

Radiolab’s genius made my brain pee its pants

ryan — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:50:45 +0000

It’s strange for a science-themed radio show to evoke both memories of Radiohead and Stereolab, but WNYC’s Radiolab does just that. Like those bands, Radiolab is both cerebral and sonic. Imagine if a band like The Books produced a radio show with a mandate to dissect the human condition. Thanks to the convenience of modern technology, this show which airs locally in New York on Fridays at 3pm on 93.9 FM, is also available as a Podcast.

I have been listening to it during my 25-minute commute to Idée for a few weeks and it is pure mind-bending genius. Scientific streams of consciousness flow beautifully along singular themes like Deception or Laughter. As if the content of the show was not engaging enough, the sound construction is dizzying. Field recordings scrambled with interviews, narrative, musical punctuations all serving the show’s theme beautifully. Seriously, you have to listen to this podcast. And because it’s such a sonic experience, I really do recommend grabbing the best pair of headphones you can get your hands on to best enjoy the ride.