on being a non-apple 'puter artist

I'm starting to get depressed by the loyality my creative friends show to second rate apple'ness on their computers. I really don't like the appl'ific software ..it only appears easy to use because it doesn't let your do very much ...ok ok some really creative types can do ammazing things but they tend to do all that with a lot of work ...manual work ...lots of fiddling .... lots of time wasted ...my feeling is in 75% of the cases just doing it manually with a pencil and paper... or paint or whatever ...would have done a better job probably in less time ...I have come to associate apple software as a time black hole just sucking in the creativity and giving a bland results, if any result can be created in a reasonable time frame. RANT OVER

So Having said all that, I am finding it hard to find the type of artistic software I would like to use to do my art directly on the computer, a much battered but loved toshi notebook running vista. Corel draw & paint are ok but expensive .. the adobe stuff also ok, albeit applish, but even more expensive ...gimp is pretty powerful and free but oh what a learning curve ...where is the middle ground?

Ok back to the rant, Itunes has trashed my music library yet again ...and goobled up most of my free disc space in the process ...bugger ...buggger ...more bugger ...it is time I learnt the lesson I should have realized sooner ...remove itunes and try something else ...so I'm rebuilding with songbird portable (ie it and the library are happy on an external USB drive) and now for my ipod ...hangon Ipod device not supported ...What the?

its too hot to worry about all this now but keep me away from apples tonight! even the edible kind

Am I a true Bohemian revolutionary?

The speed of broadband in singapore is amazing... and cheap...maybe the mythical pacific broadband bottleneck is real... anyway the extra bandwidth makes it easier to explore the video and vlog worlds and there are some creative folk already in there... maybe the true bohemian revolutions isn't a myth either... but what if you want to view the stuff when you are at lower bandwidth altitudes... well i found a nice little program called Vdownloader, which just needs the URL link details and can download video from several popular sites (including YouTube) into several popular format (including PSP and IPOD compatible format) ... so now their is no excuse not to have good art on your personal technology



For those that like a bit of surreal self reference, the first video I downloaded to my PSP was the John Bulter Trio's Good Excuse video... Its about turning off your gameboy and going outside and experiencing the real world.... now if that isn't revolutionary i don't know what is?

more about art on technology

I realise I love my ipod even more now... so many slow hours wasted waiting in hospital, where at least made bearable... but I was using the ipod so much i started to have to charge it each day... normally it lasts a few days... and that meant i had to give and let itunes update itself... (a big risk when you can not see so well)... appart from the fact that it "lost" half my mp3 collection (don't panic it is still there... the new itunes just refuses to see it and I have lost patience trying to figure out why) I was very impressed to see that not only have they added album art, they have a great alternate view of your play list call cover view


We need to congratulate folk when we see art on technology... well done apple

a bit of a buggar

i made this buddy icon for last.fm last week... and it has been very prophectic.. I had a bit of an accident and now find it hard to do anything... especially see the bloody mouse pointer even... so I might not be on-line much for a little while... and don't worry i'll be fine... but thank god i can still use my ipod