Screencast Soaps

I just discovered "You Suck at Photoshop" [via Fazed], a series of funny Photoshop tutorials by "Donnie Hoyle". The big difference to other tutorials is that you don't only learn new things about Photoshop but you also about the disastrous relationship to his wife...

While seeing the video I was immediately reminded of another IPTV series that used screencasts. The Scene tells the story of Brian Sandro who is the leader of an underground movie releasing group. You can watch the whole series here. (You can skip the second season though, it's not that good.)

A while later it came to me that these "Screencast Soaps" aren't really an anomaly in the time of reality tv, amateur reporters and embedded correspondents. Even Hollywood is trying to bring the aesthetics of a home movie to the big screen with Cloverfield and Romeros Diary of the Dead. With that in mind it's only a small step from filming the real world to recording the things that happen on the screen, a world that many of us are much more familiar with...

Quizfrage: Worum gehts in diesem Abschnitt?

“Der grelle Spieler, der Pro ist, ist ein handlicher greller Werkzeuginstallationssatz, der als greller Spieler und Manager Macromedia entworfen wird. Es hat einige leistungsfähige grelle Werkzeuge: downloaden Sie grelle Filme, Vorbetrachtung und grasen Sie grellen Film, nehmen Sie grelles Bild gefangen und stellen Sie es, wie Tapete, grelles screensaver mit Mühelosigkeit verursachen, bilden Umwandlung zwischen grellen Filmen usw.”

Hier ist der komlette Text und hier das Original.

I lol'd

Kommentar in der "NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard"-Petition:

David Mitzel, Germany, 4 hours ago
Comments: nieder mit der hundesteuer

Happy Hour rund um den Kennedyplatz in Essen

Die folgende Liste hab ich letztens auf drängen meiner Schwester erstellt weil sie sich sonst geweigert hätte mit Cocktails trinken zu gehen. Letztendlich hat das ganze aber nichts gebracht, da wir doch woanders waren...

Wo?	Wann?	Was?	Link
Café Solo	ab 22 Uhr	jeder gekennzeichnete Cocktail oder zwei Flaschen für 4,90 €	Homepage Speisekarte (Seite 11/12)
Cafe Extrablatt	18-21 Uhr	zwei Cocktails zum Preis von einem	Homepage Infos zur Cocktail Hour
Cafe & Bar Celona	ab 23 Uhr	alle Cocktails zum halben Preis	Homepage (Specials -> Cocktail Club)
Sausalitos	16-20 Uhr	alle Cocktails zum halben Preis	Homepage Infos zur Happy Hour
	ab 23 Uhr	Margaritas zum halben Preis
La Difference	Fr und Sa ab 22 Uhr	zwei Cocktails zum Preis von einem	Homepage

The Future of IM

Just had an idea while reading this post on Jamie Fristroms Blog where he explains why he is using his instant messenger as little as possible. His concern is that his contacts may be offended when he is online but doesn't talk to them, or that they want chat with him while he is working so he doesn't get anything done.

"I'd suddenly find myself in the grave after having wasted my life IMing people."

In the comments Joel recommended to use different accounts for different contexts but my idea goes a bit further. What if the instant messenger itself supported contexts?
Every contact could be associated with one or more contexts so they would only see you if you were in the same context, as shown in this image:

Switching between different contexts would be as easy as changing the status from "online" to "away" but would help immensely to keep your friends from distracting you.
A further idea is to block messages from other contexts so you can only communicate with contacts in your current context, this would help to keep all those out who try to send you offline messages in the hope that you are only invisible. :) (And yes, the messages should probably not be discarded, just hidden until you are in the correct context.)

Problems with Miranda again

Just copy the icq.dll from the 5.0 unicode nightly (found here) into the plugins directory.

Google Video: Movers & Shakers

War ja klar, dass es in dem neuen Ranking bei Google Video eigentlich nur um Fußball geht.
Ich hab allerdings eine erfreuliche Anomalie entdeckt: Diablo 2 auf Platz 10.