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Geeks go hack to the future
The net's sharpest minds are recovering from a heady week of futurology and Star Wars, reports Ben Hammersley
- from The Guardian

Lack of trust hampers UK e- government target.
Three-quarters of UK public services will be online by the end of 2002, but trust issues will hamper the next steps, says the e-envoy's office
- from ZDNet News

Heard it thru' the mobile
Recognise a tune but can't recall its name? Just ask your mobile, says Victor Keegan.
- from The Guardian

Nappers in your domain
Keep your domain name registration up to date or risk losing it to a predator, writes Peter Forbes
- from The Guardian

'Boob' makes Fool disappear.
There are red-faces at the Motley Fool today after its UK site disappeared because it failed to re-register its UK domain.
- from The Register

BT to press ahead on hyperlink case.
The UK telco refutes suggestions that it might drop its lawsuit, in which it is claiming ownership of the patent for that most basic feature of the Internet; the hyperlink.
- from ZDNet News

Whose online is it anyway?
After setting up the E-envoy's office in 1999, the government set itself ambitious targets. David Walker finds out if these online goals have been met.
- from The Guardian

Why do the good guys die young?
It seems that all the best ideas, products and services these days suddenly die out. BeOs has gone the same way.
- from The Register

Free software survives downturn.
Bill Gates beware: open source is flourishing even if the companies are not, reports Glyn Moody.
- from The Guardian

Sound surfing sense .
Napster offered free music downloaded from the internet. Can new industry-backed online sites now get consumers to pay for it, asks Edward Helmore
- from The Guardian

Berners-Lee slams 'blatant' MS browser tactics.
Tim Berners-Lee, The father of the World Wide Web, has attacked Microsoft over last week's blocking of people with non-MS browsers from using its MSN.com site.
- from The Register

I knew I was in the right place.
London is becoming a digital cultural wasteland, while the north has the funding, the venues and the festivals, writes Sean Dodson.
- from The Guardian

Getting away with it.
The Justice Department's settlement mocks antitrust law and leaves Microsoft free to ravage new markets at will By Scott Rosenberg.
- from Salon

In the deep end.
Rivals are putting on a brave face after the failure of Deepend, says Matt Reed.
- from The Guardian

Are you game?
A cadre of game aficionados secretly work on a mysterious online game.
- from Wired

Second Sight
Douglas Rushkoff's regular column in the guardian's online section. The US Justice Department are choosing to punish and publicly humiliate Bill Gates, says Douglas Rushkoff.
- from The Guardian

Bandwidth.
This article describes Kelly Abbott's ongoing efforts to help host nonprofit, independent sites.
- from The Daily Report

Gigablast.
Been playing this classic Atari game online.
- from Linkdup

Cute games.
I love these flash games, especially the really mellow Bubble Bee game.
- from K10K

Nice one, Doug.
Douglas Rushkoff explains his reasons for giving his latest book away.
- from The Guardian

They all come here in the end.
New media has come to Huddersfield in a big way.
- from The Guardian

Those magnificent genes.
Computers that evolve have begun to take off, writes Sanjida O'Connell.
- from The Guardian

What web designers put up with.
The famous "Dear Mr. Architect" letter. You'll all relate to this. It's how some clients think.

Someone fucked up!
Thousands of people today discovered that their credit cards details and personal information had been made freely available on a Consumers' Association website.
- from The Guardian

Should we be worried yet?
The intelligence system 'Echelon' will be scanning your e-mails and phone calls. Are you worried about your privacy?
- from the BBC.

YES! At last!
I got my guestbook to work properly...kinda. Go on sign it, please. It's certainly a great day in the field of human endeavour when I manage some CGI stuff. Many thanks to Terry at Megabook.

Another great design site.
This one is by Blue Lounge Design. I love the installations they've done. And the Blade Runner beeps are cool ;)
- from Blue Lounge Design

Ooh, I like this kind of design.
Very Bauhaus looking designs, but with a little bit more warmth. Nice work.
- from Stallinga

It's, like, Johnny Ball online!
Not really, though. But still excellent. Like an interactive Quatermass film....kinda.
- from The Qua Lab

Oh My God! NO!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Maccy Dee Simulator. They do have a nice car though...are we in the wrong business? Answers on a postcard.
- from The Concept Lab

Electronic election
As more of us are now online than in 1997, David Walker finds out how politicians are targeting voters.
- from The Guardian

What's the deal with "Internet Time"?
It sounds like a cool idea. No time-zones, geography, British Summer Time. Just one time to use online, everyone works to the same hourglass. So why hasn't it caught on?

2001 Archive

[28th of April 2001 - 21st of December 2001]

Home > Current Archive

Welcome to the kevinbeynon.com archive.

Here are two that I found at Linkdup:

Dadaphonic - A music label site. Nicely done. Reminiscent of K10K.

Habitat - You know I'm not a big fan of Flash-heavy sites, but this is excellent. Taking Flash on the web a step further.

Merry Christmas.

Okay, I may be a little slow on the uptake, but I'll get there.

So, I'm going to start (again a little late) with CSS. My first port of call was Brainjar for some good, old-fashioned, down-to-earth tutorials. And so it begins...

See you in a couple of years when I've worked out how to get Linux running!

Oh! One more thing! (Columbo moment). Redcricket has a fresh Camtoon up. Great stuff.

Well, Christmas soon. I still have to out and buy decorations and lights for the flat.

The New Year will see the most welcome resurfacing of K10K. That counter is really getting me down.

Mike sent me an interesting tidbit about the Hobbit Name Generator I mentioned before. Try entering "George Bush" and see what happens.

Ho hum.

Cheers Mike

A signup process will be available soon, so get your names on the list to receive first pick of some prime, design real estate. If you don't know what Designer Underground is about take a look at Distant Shore for some info.

Djimm has added some excellent new work to his portfolio section. Can't wait for more of this stuff. Nicely done, mate.

You'd think I'd have something better to do than find obscure, Tolkien, name changing websites. Well...I haven't.

Get your's free at this site.

Thanks to Harrumph for the link.

The section on the Guardian site dedicated to this report also includes articles on the current state of Broadband, ideas of future trends and some interesting details on who the big players are in this new and volatile business.

Download the Report in .PDF.

"The Idea Line displays a timeline of net artworks, arranged in a fan of luminous threads. Each thread corresponds to a particular kind of artwork or type of technology. The brightness of each thread varies with the number of artworks that it contains in each year, so you can watch the ebb and flow of different lines of thought over time."

Sounds great, doesn't it. Looks and works beautifully too.

Been busy correcting some Flash animations in the ROME Project. Took some time out at lunch to look at Banja, a great online game/community site. It plays like an adventure game, but it's all made in Flash. I was very impressed...and hooked.

So, onwards.

Something a little mellow for this evening. I remember visiting this site a few years ago when it first went up. Now it's version 1.2 and it is gorgeous. I'm not usually a sucker for Flash sites, but this has got me hooked. A little more company would have been nice though!

It was Huw and Andrea's wedding on the 18th of last month in Oakland, California. But, they had another reception in Wales on the 25th for those of us who didn't fancy a transatlantic trip.

*Congratulations to you both.*

The more perceptive amongst you will have spotted the extra links on the bottom right of this page. Independents Day and ASAP. They are there because I'm getting seriously fed up with the over-commercialisation of the Internet. If it isn't spam mail, it's ads on web pages.

The whole thing is diluting the free, rich and diverse nature of the web, leaving only those who are in it just for the money.

Follow the links and have a look for yourselves.

For more info' on Global Capitalism read The Silent Takeover by Noreena Hertz. An intriguing insight into the world of the corporations.

</rant>

Been trouncing around linkdup quite a bit recently and came across this nice site. The 3D ship is beautifully animated if a bit of a bulky download at 2Mb. But, it's well worth it for a different kind of navigation tool.

Habbo Hotel have introduced a few new features. Namely, private rooms. Unfortunately, their commercial intention rears it's head with the fact that you have to pay via SMS to furnish those rooms. Say "hi" to Blooz when you get there!

I now have to go back to paying fo my internet access! Pooh! Well, while I'm moping around and spending not much time online, take a look at the Camtoons at Redcricket.com.

Who'd have thought the Green Lantern had so many uses!

I always wanted a Chopper bike. With the gear shift and the pennant on an aerial. Hummmm.... nostalgia. I had a Bigtrak, though.

19th of July, 2001 : 10.14pm
An amazing piece of work was brought to my attention today. It's a website all about palaeoanthropology called becominghuman.org and it has the finest design I've seen in a while.

It contains an online documentary narrated/presented by Donald Johanson. A masterpiece of modern media, if only for the broadband-gifted among us.

16th of July, 2001 : 8.46pm
Been doing a Casablanca today. All I did was wait, and wait, and wait, and wait...

The object of my waiting was a 16th Century manuscript. A relic of ancient wars, the manuscript holds the secret to immortality, the final phase in my plan for world dominATION!....mwa-ha-ha-haaaa...

Um, actually, that's not true. I was really waiting for a hard-drive, a sound card and a graphics card to be delivered. But, the manuscript sounded better. They haven't been delivered and I'm not very happy now :(

I'll just have to continue to wait, and wait, and wait...

So, I spent a lot of my time at Jump Tomorrow. An amazing film promotion site. I was walking around for ages. Excellent source of inspiration too. It was created by Hi-Res.

13th of July, 2001 : 7.58pm
What a day! But, all will be well tomorrow after some drinkin' with Tim McKnight in ol' Huddersfield Town.

Just to keep you updated; I'm working on designers underground these days. I'm looking to Greymatter for the News Entry code which will, hopefully, allow the curators to enter and edit journal, news and gallery info into the site.

I'll keep you posted.

8th of July, 2001 : 11.17pm
Just seen Tomb Raider...don't ask why, just accept the fact!

I mean, Angelina Jolie is a nice enough lass, but the whole thing looks like a huge music video. Don't think much of the directing nor the script, but it was enjoyable enough, so I suppose it succeeds at that.

Sorted my new e-mail system out now, so give it a go and let me know what you think of the site. You don't have to if you don't want to, you just could, if you want to... (name the ad).

4th of July, 2001 : 11.14pm
If anyone's looking for some suggestions for good design books, look no further than digital thread.

One of my favourites is Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte. A beautifully presented book on design. More a source of inspiration than a reference book.

You should check out the latest issue at k10k. A collaborative magazine on and by designers.

30th of June, 2001 : 3.28pm
Do you reckon this site is getting a little narcissistic?
Or is it just me?! Ha-Ha! Um...anyway...

Wanted to let you know that test tube designer is NOT Tim's new personal site. It's a project of his to develop an exciting new online community. His personal site will be the7thminute.com.

Take a look at Design is Kinky's latest profile. It's of the founder of Archinect, Paul Petrunia. I really enjoy his site and it seems to embody many of the philosophies I hold dear.

"The goal of ARCHINECT is to take advantage of the internet to make ARCHItecture more conNECTed and open minded by bringing together designers from around the world to introduce ideas from all disciplines."

27th of June, 2001 : 10.41pm
Well, it's time I bit the bullet and filled in my Self Assessment form.

I've also made a decision to really make a go of web design. I know what you're all thinking. "If this site is anything to go by, he'll be ruined!" Well, thanks for the concern, but what the heck, it's time I made my own decisions.

I believe that I have a few good ideas to offer and if there's a small chance that I might succeed in enjoying myself then I'm all for it.

I'm buying my books, reading up, filling in the forms and going for it.

So, if anyone has any work they'd like to throw my way, go to distant shore (yes, that's me too) and send me an e-mail.

I'm going outside. I may be some time...

22nd of June, 2001 : 7.40pm
It's now time to say hello to Tim McKnight's Test Tube Designer.

The Globestation, by Roisin will soon be seeing the light of day thanks to her recent travels in California. There'll be more information on theglobestation appearing at distant shore soon.

22nd of June, 2001 : 11.30am
Well, it's been a month since my last update. A lot has happened since then. Parts of my life have changed so completely while others have stayed exactly the same.

Things started, happened and then ended. Some of the things I hoped would never end, did, but I'll never forget them. I'll never be sorry that any of it happened. Now it's time to say goodbye. Per amore.

29th of May, 2001 : 9.20pm
Been busy over the Bank Holiday weekend. Getting the redesigned Chesterman Swann site ready for a relaunch. Won't be long.

24th of May, 2001 : 9.17pm
This has been one of the best weeks in a while. And it's mostly thanks to the much appreciated interference of Ms Shafi. Who will soon be getting a permanent link on the right. Cheers Mamie ;)

Also got sent this scaaaaary link. It really is great...who needs lyrics when you've got a kid from the Village of the Damned singing your songs. "Why are you afraid of us, father?" AAAAAAAAAAGH!
(and I mean the old British version not the American remake)

Spacebaby has changed ISPs, bought a domain name and moved over there. Good luck squire.

He's not the only one. Mr. McKnight has hopped it and will now be concentrating on test tube designer for a while. What is this, a migration? Am I missing something? Should I NOT put parmesan on his pasta?! ....ask him!

22nd of May, 2001 : 3.06pm
Just a quick note to prove I'm still alive. Not feeling at all well today.

Found a really nice personal site at Laughing Now. Great digital imagery work and a really nice redesign. Weird, upsidedown, animals too?!

19th of May, 2001 : 11.41pm
Spent most of my hard earned weekend installing Linux on my machine. Thought I'd defect and see what all the fuss is about. And I have to say I'm impressed by the quality and seriousness of this excellent ideal.

Neal Stephenson explains it best in his essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line". A free copy is available at his website. And speaking of Neal Stephenson, you should really check out his magnum opus, Cryptonomicon.

17th of May, 2001 : 10.01pm
Hello there. Got things sorted today. Been talking to a good friend who'll be running theglobestation.com. It'll be a great travel site for the people who can't sit still.

She's off again on her travels. Can't wait for the photos. Last ones were great.

Speaking of photos, I'll be posting some of my work up here soon. Made from photos I took when I visited Amalfi in Italy, great place.

There was a little shop there near the seafront that sold handmade paper bound in leather journals, fountain pens and excellent maps.

And that's as far as I've been.

Shattoo! is so much fun I've given it its own link on the right.

16th of May, 2001 : 9.05pm
I seem to remember promising you all a story the other day.

Well, let me tell you about how I fell in love on the Homeworld forum.

"It was a quiet evening sometime in late 1999 and I was browsing the community section of the Homeworld game website.

I'd caught on to a thread about the music used in the game - very good music, I might add. Anyway, it seemed that a "young" man had taken exception to a few comments regarding the inclusion of piece of classical music in the game's score.

*hang on...my drink's spilled on the keyboard*

Right, where were we? Ah, yes.

Now, this chap wasn't very happy that the music was by Barber - his Adagio for Strings, I believe. He was ranting about how it was all silly and for narrow-minded posh ponses. Well, I, like many of the other visitors to the board weren't too happy at this.

Then, in she stepped.

She slapped him down so hard he must have physically felt it. She continued to explain that she considerd herself to be a well-adjusted, cultured person and went on to back this up by describing her social life....wow!

Needless to say, I was impressed. I think she said she played the Saxaphone, but I could be wrong. What I do remember is that she fenced! My God! That was it; I was taken with her. She enjoyed classical music for how it sounded rather than the fact that it was classical. She read a lot. She mentioned her favourite author....

She sounded amazing. When she finished you could almost hear everyone else cheer.

I don't know how many times I read that posting...quite a few, I imagine. And that's what I do now: imagine.

I never saw another posting by her again and eventually stopped looking.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her. That I don't wish I'd somehow gotten her e-mail address, that I'd somehow managed to get in touch.

And here endeth the first lesson. Take that opportunity. Be it in business, love or life in general. Don't let it pass you by, ever.

THE END."

NB. Don't take this too seriously...except if you are that girl!

16th of May, 2001 : 8.24pm
I feel better today. I reread a card sent to me by a good friend of mine in which she thanks me for being a friend. I'm happy now.

I could do some work now...nah. I'll just surf instead. Been looking for some nice personal sites. How does Harrumph! grab ya?

I'm so happy I'm gonna sing a song, it's entitled "Me Revo has no backlight", and it goes a little something like this:

"Me revo has no backlight,
can't see a bloody thing.
I wish it had a backlight,
so I can see what I'm typing...in?"

Never said it was any good!

14th of May, 2001 : 9.59pm
I won't sleep much tonight. I've never been this nervous about talking to a woman in my life. Is that a good sign? Sarah thinks I'm trying too hard, and she's probably right.

The thing is I can't show her who I am until I know who I am myself. I feel like "post-modern" man. What do I do if everything's been done before? Okay, so most ideas are inspirational, but if there's nothing new then what are we doing here?

*my crisis of faith begins*

To make it clear: I'm not a religious person. That's not to say I'm not spiritual. I may rely a lot on empirical evidence, but I still try to keep an open mind.

I suppose the closest I could get to religion would be Buddhism. Apart from intruiging me, it seems to hit a chord.

So as I sit here thinking of a girl, religion and my place in the universe, read something by Kafka, and wish me luck.

Next time I may have a story to tell.

14th of May, 2001 : 7.27pm
What a weekend! Still haven't recovered. So now I'm relaxing to the sounds of Gretchen Lieberum while psyching myself up to make a phone call.

I've finally got to the stage where I'm happy with my work. It's only taken about 25 years...that can't be too bad. So, I'll hopefully meet up with Mr. McKnight soon to discuss future projects; and drink large amounts of exported Russian liquid-goods.

30th of April, 2001 : 6.30pm
I've added a few more links today. Been busy working on the ROME Project and don't have much time to myself these days. Take a look at the links and see what you think.

28th of April, 2001 : 8.50pm
As you've probably guessed this place is new. Yes, yes, I'm working on it, already. Once underway, it'll hopefully give me some space to rant, praise and sometimes show off.

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