Why is it that I don't have an original Xbox? Becuase Gina over at Lifehacker has a tutorial on how XBMC turns your Mac into the ultimate media center.
Trying out this Mac application that acts as a front-end to your Gmail data: Mailplane 2.0 beta.
Ben Fry's map of the US, constructed just from the streets in the country. Amazing how the roads define the territory.
If you're dual booting your computer, you might want to check out NTFS-3G, a driver to mount Windows NTFS drives from the Mac OS.
Can you tell I'm thinking about typography? 5 Principles And Ideas Of Setting Type On The Web, from my new favorite design site, Smashing Magazine.
Shame on Microsoft. Their "PlaysForSure" DRM scheme, which they pushed for years as a good solution for consumers, will be turned off on August 31. That means that songs you bought will still work, but if you change computers, or hardware, you'll be out of luck. This, my friends, is why DRM sucks.
You can hack the URL for the new CNN t-shirt maker to create your own.
Design star Jon Hicks on setting up a Mac Mini Media Centre. Love the British spelling!
If you're not reading Andy Baio's blog waxy.org, you're missing one of the most essential sites online today. Andy, who founded upcoming.org, has dedicated himself to using his blog to do original reporting (which is slightly easier to do when the economic pressure is lessened by a Yahoo! payout). Today, he's got a simply mind-blowing piece up about Infocom, the legendary maker of adventure games in the 80s. Andy has gotten a copy of Infocom's network backup drive, and has dug out the untold story of the never released sequel to Infocom's classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game.
There are internal email, discussions of how to structure a second game, and even a little bit of playable code. Just astonishing. In the comments section, members of the Infocom team are reminiscing about these days, 20 years ago.
Given the amount of time I spent playing Infocom games, I'm just giddy at the chance to see this information, and in awe at the reporting and work that went into it. Amazing stuff.
Analyze Your Email Usage with Mail Trends. Nifty toy for Gmail users.
The Most Hated Song in the World. This is actually strangely compelling.
Great Lifehacker post on how to create a lightweight Windows install, especially useful for virtual machine users.
Flickr launches video: 90 second limit on clips. They're clearly viewing this as a more personal video site, rather than old Sanford and Son episodes.
Greetings from Nike: here for the launch of their products for the Beijing Olympics, including some really interesting shoes designed around the same principles as suspension bridges....
Ooo, cool. Hacked firmware for Canon cameras.
South Park: Still funny, especially this riff on Internet video from last night. Valleywag collects the inspirations.
Cameron Moll's series on The Highly Extensible CSS Interface. I kinda love this sort of stuff.
Kedrosky checks the situation:
I talked to six southern California Apple stores, and here is the gist:
* No iPhones at any of these six stores
* Most ran out Friday/Saturday
* They don't know when they will get more, so "just keep calling"
* It hasn't happened beforeThis is tough one to figure. Strikes me that one of three things is going on:
1. Apple has a component issue and is doing a quiet recall
2. Apple has a supply issue with a major sole-source supplier
3. Apple is set to do a surprise launch of a 3G phone
This is, in fact, super odd for Apple, which might have trouble keeping up with demand at the start of a product cycle, but almost never has issues with established gear. When you see this sort of shortage on Apple laptops, for instance, it's almost always because they're about to announce new models.
As much as I'd like the 3G phone to be the reason for the shortage, I don't think we'll see that before the fall. My guess: problem with a supplier.
Available on Amazon as of today: the Alinea cookbook. If you haven't heard of Alinea, it's the Chicago restaurant that Gourmet magazine named the best in America:
Meanwhile, someone new has entered the arena. His name is Grant Achatz, and he is redefining the American restaurant once again for an entirely new generation. And that - more than his gorgeous, inventive, and delicious food - is what makes Alinea the got-to-go-to restaurant in the country right now.
I can't even express how proud and excited I am to be involved in this project. When I first ate at Alinea for a story I was writing for Wired, I knew that I had stumbled into a completely new world. Chef Grant Achatz and his team blew me away, not only with the astonishing creativity and taste of their food, but also with their dedication and commitment to the restaurant, and to one another.
I stayed in contact with Grant and his partner Nick Kokonas over the next couple of years, as Grant was diagnosed with cancer, and then beat it back. When they asked me to contribute to their cookbook, I said yes in a heartbeat.
It's going to be an amazing project. I'm writing about the science behind some of Alinea's dishes. Meanwhile, maybe the two best food writers in America, Jeffery Steingarten and Michael Ruhlman, are also writing about Alinea. Michael Nagrant of hungrymag.com is also bringing behind-the-scenes looks at this amazing place.
The book will be out in October, and you can preorder it either at Amazon, or better yet at Alinea's site, where you will get a limited edition of the book and also access to Alinea Mosaic, where there will be videos from the kitchen at Alinea, extra recipes, and tons of images.