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E-envoy declares broadband Britain a success, claims credit
UK e-Envoy Andrew Pinder has decided to bunk off his homework this month, and instead of focusing on "specific areas" of his getting Britain online strategy, has decided to "pause and reflect...
- from The Register

Minority report
The UK lags well behind other nations in using e- government services.
- from The Guardian

Music biz strikes back with free, DRM 'padlocked' downloads
The juxtaposition of the words "free", "music" and "download" had its all too predictable effect yesterday when what was categorised as the UK music industry's kinder, gentler riposte to P2P (Probably to Pirate) file sharing kicked off.
- from The Register

Stelios protests at threat of music biz CD burning gag
EasyInternetCafe - the high street Internet café chain - is to protest outside the High Court in London tomorrow against the threat of a gagging order from the music industry.
- from The Register

UK Government suffers data retention blow
Data protection commissioners from various European countries oppose sweeping proposals that would force ISPs to retain communications traffic for up to two years
- from ZDNet News

Making a mesh on the move
A new way to give us fast mobile net access spells further trouble for 3G, reports Peter Rojas.
- from The Guardian

Just watching the directives
Who protects us when we can all be tracked? Asks Karlin Lillington.
- from The Guardian

Dell mocks MS' mandatory-OS regime
Dell has devised a cute trick to accommodate its big corporate customers without crossing its Lord and Master, Microsoft, which has decreed that all OEM computers shall be shipped with operating systems
- from The Register

File swappers launch the MP3 Party
The UK Electoral Commission has agreed to the registration of the MP3 Party, which aims to radically simplify British government and civil administration.
- from The Register

Standards stalled over royalty disputes
A key Web standards body is bracing for a vote next week that could decide once and for all how it will handle patented technology that comes with royalties attached.
- from ZDNet News

BT cuffed for broadband ad fib
The Advertising watchdog has mauled BT for a misleading broadband ad.
- from The Register

A new blow to our privacy
Phone and internet data must now be retained longer. Wendy Grossman looks at what it means.
- from The Guardian

2002 Archive

[14th of January 2002 - 12th of December 2002]

Home

Welcome to the kevinbeynon.com archive.

12th of December, 2002 : 1.13pm

My Web site? My web site? My website?

I tend towards 'website' and 'e-mail'; my argument being that it's a medium as in 'book', not a place as in 'Poughkeepsie'. It's also how it makes sense to me. 'Web site' just doesn't sit right with me...

In true Columbo fashion: Oh, ah... just one more thing, sir. Is My Connection Hot Or Not?

10th of December, 2002 : 10.46am

Hillman Curtis' new book, Making The Invisible Visible, is a great read for anyone working in this rather indistinct business.

When it's sometimes difficult to explain exactly what it is you do for a living this book finally grounds the 'new media designer' in a field of their very own.

Another book I recently purchased is The Graphic Design Cookbook.

"With 100,000 copies sold, Graphic Design Cookbook is one of the most useful all-purpose resources for designers and anyone who wants to create a dynamic layout for magazines, newsletters, books, posters, or other media."

Thanks to Andy Rock for this weird little gem. Robohouse: My Robot gives you a robot alter ego after you answer some question.

Here's mine:

now I'm worried...

And one last thing from Robohouse. Yes, that's it, a Horse Quartet?!

6th of December, 2002 : 1.47pm

What a wonderful little widget - RE_INVIGORATE's great Stat Counter. A great site with little programmed works of art.

It'll be counting stats for this site soon.

2nd of December, 2002 : 10.54am

I'm considering buying a laptop. I want it to run Linux. I don't want Windows. I don't want to pay for an OS I don't use. Here's an idea.

20th of November, 2002 : 2.25pm

This site's date boxes (like the one above) just aren't rendering properly in Mozilla 1.1. I wonder why... They overlap beneath the coloured column on the right. Anyone got any ideas? Drop me line.

18th of November, 2002 : 12.45pm

After doing a search for "Memory Palace" I came across an archived-but-sometimes-added-to site called Mappa.Mundi.net.

"Mappa.Mundi Magazine explores how we see and use the Internet."

Oh, and I found my "Memory Palace" article...

14th of November, 2002 : 2.46pm

More intelligent sites for kids are making an appearance these days. A good one is 3D&i, a design site for the younger web-people among us. I'm not a kid, but I was having trouble getting my PEP to float!!!

12th of November, 2002 : 1.22pm

"I am concerned by current plans to legalise software patents in Europe, considering their damaging effect on innovation and competition.

I am concerned by the possible use of software patents to patent business methods, education methods, health methods, etc.

I am concerned by the current track record of abuses from the European Patent Office, especially by their tendency to abuse their judicial power to extend the scope of patentability.

I am surprised that no economic report has ever been published by European Authorities to study the impact of software patents on innovation and competition.

I urge decisionmakers at all levels in Europe to enforce the Law, which clearly prohibits patenting pure computer programs, instead of changing it.

I urge decisionmakers at all levels in Europe to reconsider their current plans and to make sure patents are not abused to prohibit or restrict the dissemination of computer programs and intellectual methods."

Sign the petition if you agree.

5th of November, 2002 : 2.55pm

After my usual devouring of K10k links I found this little beauty. Hilarious animations with great sounds.

Enjoy.

1st of November, 2002 : 1.39pm

You might wonder why I wanted my copy of Suse Linux 8 to look like OS X. Well, I didn't. I wanted it to look good and the Acqua Theme for KDE 3 was perfect.

It's sharp, stylish, well designed and has just the right amount of colour to keep it interesting. Well done Aronnax

23rd of October, 2002 : 4.14pm

The Visual Thesaurus reminds me of The Brain. And they're both weird.

The Visual Thesaurus is a visual mapping of words. Type in a word, see links to related words, click other words to change focus and display other related words. Phew.

The Brain, on the other hand, doesn't just link words. You can use it to create your very own file structure. Not hierarchical, but relational.

14th of October, 2002 : 1.00pm

A quote by Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco from The Register:

"Every new technology medium seems to enjoy a delicious moment, between being born as a vehicle for human creativity controlled by no one, into a Pigopolistic advertising channel, controlled by very few."

11th of October, 2002 : 10.30am

More Open Source goodies. Take a look at this article to find out how truly free Open Source software is. It takes as its starting point the flawed claims Microsoft makes when it says it gives free software to schools and charities.

Ask them about upgrading and installing on other machines...

10th of October, 2002 : 3.01pm

Open Source: The Movie.

Revolution OS is a documentary film of the birth of the Open Source movement.

"Microsoft fears GNU/Linux, and rightly so. GNU/Linux and the Open Source & Free Software movements arguably represent the greatest threat to Microsoft's way of life. Shot in cinemascope on 35mm film in Silicon Valley, REVOLUTION OS tracks down the key movers and shakers behind Linux, and finds out how and why Linux became such a potent threat."

9th of October, 2002 : 10.25am

ICANN can't. ISC can.

Take a look at IMS for an update of the fight against the incorporation of what should be a free and not-for-profit led ORGanisation.

It's funny how:

"...ICANN replaced the public comment forum for .org with an email-only submission queue which is filtered for "irrelevant" messages."

Naughty ICANN!

7th of October, 2002 : 1.33pm

Distant Shore is getting a redesign. See the draft here.

Action Pixel is a site all for social change. It's intended audience is web developers/designers who want to help bring about that change.

3rd of October, 2002 : 9.54am

Roisin has moved in for good. Or until we emigrate anyway.

I can still see the telly if I move five boxes, but that means I have to move them back to get to the bathroom! But, considering the fact she's brought 'Ghost Castle' and 'The Vampire Game' with her plus a full Magic: The Gathering set, she's more than welcome.

So, from now on, it's our flat.

27th of September, 2002 : 12.38pm

Oooh. Having a go at Zeldman are we?

26th of September, 2002 : 2.17pm

Been a CSS-tastic day today. The date box above is no longer made with tables. It's all in the style sheet.

Not only does it result in cleaner markup, but it's also easier to code. Just stick the relevant <span> tags around the text and voilá. Easier than copying and pasting tables everywhere.

The archive has been archived?! The archive page was getting huuuge. So I've split it by year. The 2001 entries are now on another page, but are still as accessible as before. Enjoy.

26th of September, 2002 : 12.48pm

You might think it ironic that, considering the colour scheme on this site, I'd be reading a Pantone book. Well, it's worth it.

The PantoneGuide to Communicating with Color is a well written, informative, and most of all, useful guide to designing with colour.

The colour swatches are great. They help you choose a general colour scheme for your project based on the feeling you're trying to convey. You can then fine-tune these selections by adding colours from other swatches.

An invaluable addition to any designer's bookshelf. Great value too.

I should get a job in sales...

Expect a redesign of this site's colour scheme soon ;)

The Designer Underground Newsletter system is in place, so sign up now. There'll be an edition going out this weekend to let you know where we're at.

The Globestation Launch Notification system is also available. It'll look prettier soon, but darnit, it works.

Djimm has gone freelance. He knows that's where the money's at. I know it's not very competitive of me, but I wish him luck. While I have a full-time job as well as being self-employed he's depending on his own skills and talent to bring in the pay cheque - that takes a lot of guts.
Bon chance mon ami.

(I apologise to everyone else...)

I've started using Mozilla over the last few weeks and I'm impressed. Haven't had any problems at all so far. Read a review of the current browsers, including Mozilla, here.

Another design firm, Plastic Kid, has the following to say about itself:

"Plastic Kid is a idealistic communiqué spung from the love of art and creation. Offering a visual dimension for the young and vivid, Plastic Kid is the one man graphic design army that can ensure your project the needed spark of beauty and style."

The work is clean, crisp and nicely laid out. Just the way I like it. ;)

The site includes tutorials on Photoshop, HTML, PHP and Flash and demonstrates some beautiful, yet simple, techniques.

Bought SuSE Linux 8.0 and got it working on my PC. Great Open Source days ahead.

Linux seems to be getting closer and closer to an acceptable level of simplicity for the average home user. I don't think it's quite there yet, but, as computing news seem to be talking more and more about Linux, it's only a matter of time before we see a simple-to-install-and-run Open Source OS hit the streets.

Moluv is a great site that lists submitted sites and... well, you have to see it to believe it.

20th of August, 2002 : 3.51pm

Am I being paranoid or is everyone and his dog after our e-mail?

Here's an article about more govornmental snooping!

If anyone's interested why not install PGP to encrypt your e-mail?

10th of August, 2002 : 10.10pm

Andy Warhol said, amongst other things, that, in the future, everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. Well here's your chance.

You might remember that I put a link here once to becoming human.org, a great flash-based documentary site. Well, here's another web documentary. It's the Theban Mapping Project. It's about The Valley of The Kings, near Cairo. They can describe it best:

"Discover each tomb in the Valley in this interactive version of our Atlas. Investigate a database of information about each tomb, view a compilation of nearly 2,000 images, interact with models of each tomb, and measure, pan, and zoom over 250 detailed maps, elevations, and sections. Experience sixty-five narrated tours by Dr. Weeks and explore a 3D recreation of tomb KV 14."

This art project is something quite fresh. It's called the Alphabet Synthesis Machine. It generates organic, evolving typefaces from your own squiggles. You can then download these fonts and use them yourself.

Just one more. This is a magazine.com is... well, it's a magazine. Great artwork, articles and animation, beatifully presented with thought and depth.

5th of August, 2002 : 4.00pm

A lot has happened since I last wrote here.

I'm now **officially** married after a beautiful week in Scotland.

Now then. Since our plan is to travel quite a bit I've been looking at some travel related sites. Decibel Dragon is a visually exciting treat with images of locations ranging from San Fransisco to Lebanon.

As exciting to navigate as it is to view.

"The report, called Pooling Open-Source Software, recommends that European administrations should share software on an open-source licensing basis, to cut soaring e-goverment information technology costs which, it says, are set to rise by 28 percent to 6.6bn euros this year."

- ZD Net UK

On the same topic ZD Net News has posted this newer article about the Norweigan Governments withdrawal from a deal with Microsoft.

I'm happy now. Off for a cigar and a brandy on the patio. ;)

Zeldman has regularly drawn attention to the plight of various individuals who've been "bent over the back of a chair" by incompetent/dishonest/stupid registrar organizations. The Internet Multicasting Service is a group who have decided to offer an alternative to the, now prolific, commercial registrars. They intend to accomplish this by making the .ORG TLD registrar service a non-profit organization.

"Strong public support may persuade ICANN to award the registry to the most technically competent team instead of the best-funded one."

- Jeffrey Zeldman
zeldman.com

The IMSs 'Spread the Dot' campaign aims to promote the issues of a .ORG Public Trust.

The link to the campaign will remain in the Links column on the right.

More info:
Microsoft unveils Palladium in Newsweek

Dave Winer on Palladium

Robert Cringely

What a buggy game. Won't even start four times out of five. When it does start it's great.

The mountain-biking, programming, running bloke is online.

I'll use it to notify anyone who signs up about the launch date and the features the site wil include.

Have a good weekend.

Still looking for the right Linux distribution for me. Had a look at Lycoris. Looks nice and simple. They also sell Linux ready computers - wehey!

So, I've been spending some time at Robotduck. It's a great retro-style game site. I'm now a Seventh Portal addict... cheers guys.

Got hitched on Saturday and am now a husband - woohoo!

I like Veer. I like it a lot. This one is definitely getting an entry in the Links column.

"Veer provides visual elements for use in professional creative work, such as graphic design, motion design, advertising and filmmaking. Our products include stock photography, illustration, maps, and motion clips, as well as typefaces."

To parahrase Jack "Nighthawk" Killian from "Midnight Caller": "Enjoy your lunch, wherever you are."

Been really busy recently with the IOM site. Next step is to update Chesterman Swann. There's a re-hash of Distant Shore coming soon too, but it'll still be a design company site. I'm still going to be doing my own work.

One of my favourite design company sites is 37signals. It's clean, crisp and has that great "positive feedback loop" thing going. It's brilliantly written as well and their white paper on Contingency Design is a must read.

First off is a site I found this very day. It's a resource for artists and has information ranging from doing your tax to setting up an exhibition. It's called Anweb.com and is definitely going into the Links column on the right.

Next is another resource site; this time for web designers and developers. It's called Massimo's Corner and has hints and tips on, mainly, Dreamweaver, but also Fireworks and Ultradev. A big spotlight on extensibility.

Hands On is a great site for Photoshop techniques. Includes clear, helpful tutorials and loads of example files. It's a must for any Photoshopper. I love the glass effect.

A re-design of Distant Shore will be launched soon as will the pre-launch information sub-site for Designer Underground.

I've also added a search engine to this site courtesy of Atomz. I'm trying it out with a view to adding it to my other projects.

A snazzy interface, but with the recognisable humour welcomes us to the new designer's lunchbox.

The latest article at A List Apart sets us straight on DOCTYPES.

Tim McKnight has been working hard on his new Moody Issues site. And it's great. Tim's link on the Links column has now been changed to reflect this.

Legodeath is a great little site that proves what Aristotle said: "someone with too much time on their hands can create hilarious lego models".

At least I think it was him...

Been swotting up on PHP and MySQL recently. This will be put to god use with designerunderground.net. I'll be providing a means for you to send us your work soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Bought the newly released Akira DVD today. Looks great.

The next step is to redesign the icons; give them a consistent look. The zoom feature will be getting a pounding. Titchy, titchy icons!!!

Busily working at home today, IOMnet will be up soon.

Another reason for my happiness is that I've finally discovered the theme music for the Miss Marple TV series. No, I don't mean the old Margaret Rutherford comedy ones. I mean the cool Joan Hickson ones. And here it is along with a whole host of other greats from the good old days.

Spot the evils in the quaint village of St Mary Mead.

How about a little wildlife? This site will keep you enlightened as to the species most commonly found around here.

If you're looking for some old versions of web browsers take a look at evolt. They've got loads.

The first is Ry Guy. This is the kind of Flash site I really like. Pushing it to creat truly excellent and innovative interfaces. Those aliens freak me out though.

The second is a site called little rocket and is a beautifully illustrated place with some compelling stories, images and poetry. An inspired piece of work.

Distant Shore will no longer be a website for pimping my limited web design skills. Since co-founding Kirkland McKnight I've decided to make distant shore a personal site of sorts.

It will be a collection of articles aimed at promoting the exposure of corruption, corporate wrongdoing and human rights violations.

It's not as if many of you haven't seen it coming, with a reading list containing:

	Anti-Capitalsim: A Guide to the Movement by George Monbiot et al.
	The Silent Takeover by Noreena Hertz.
	No Logo by Naomi Klein.
	Captive State by George Monbiot.

you couldn't say it was unexpected.

So be kind, but fair.

Found an excellent story regarding a stolen Mac and some beautiful scripting.

Oh, bugger... I'll get my coat!

Both mediainspiration and artandculture give me a space where I can be inspired. Artandculture is also a huge resource for the arts. I enjoy browsing the site, especially using the Flash navigation tool that lets you choose from related topics.

My parents have sent me a great card. It's a talking James Bond one. And it says:

"I've got a message from Russia with Love. They won't take Dr. No for an answer. If you think I'm talking a load of Thunderball then give me the Goldfinger, but hey. Have a nice day."

I love that card.

Andy has changed his site. It's now called Digital Pervert. The links on the right have changed to reflect this.

Like this for instance. Free e-card things. Lovely. Oh boy, oh boy; you can even create your own!

Thanks to Australian INFront for the link.

Why do I keep collecting design site t-shirts? Take a look at the t-shirt design competition at Derush.

A little news for you web junkies. I'm now a director of a fresh media agency called Kirkland McKnight. Didn't say the site was up yet. We'll be developing e-learning material, websites, WAP services, print projects and much more. All from the sunny climes of exotic Huddersfield. Drop us a mail if you need anything.

Beast is a free "magazine”. Published monthly (one year long) as a PDF file. No HTML, no Flash, no content, no sponsors, no banner, no ads. Main focus is on design, typography, art, illustration, photography, mind & matter and all kinds of creative exhausts.

Thanks to Digital Thread for the link.

It's a shame more of us aren't as aware of the world around us as some people. And that includes seeing its flaws as well as its beauty.

Visit Adbusters to get a wider perspective.

And to keep track of how you're feeling this year why not use Moodstats. Developed by the K10K crew, Moodstats lets you track and record how you feel and share this with others over the net.

To find out how I've been over the last few days, search for an user called Blooz.

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