Mick's World

Being a self taught geek there are some things that take time to pick up on, due to not knowing they existed. A couple of years ago i started to enter the world of OOP. It took a little while to get my head around the concept and it seemed that while i was looking for information on the topic there was so much stuff to consider, which added to any confusion i may have had.

Such considerations were things like: N-tier, MVC, Design Patterns. All of this at once on top of trying to concentrate on what OOP was, made for a lot of thinking. Either way after a while of looking through different examples and writing some code the concept of OOP stuck and MVC and N-Tier made a lot more sense.

Up until recently however i still didn’t really put much thought into Design Patterns. I’d read about them, but mainly when i was still trying to grasp what OOP was all about, so Patterns didn’t get too much thought.

Sometimes still i’ll just get on with writing the code and making it work, i don’t mean just hacking something together and hoping it works, but i don’t put as much though into the Design Patterns as maybe i should, or have been led to believe i should. Whatever the case there are a couple of sites that help to understand these concepts if you are stuck thinking about while designing or working on a project.

One of the first sites that i really read about Design Patterns and got a fair bit of MVC knowledge from was phpPatterns by Harry Fuecks. It’s a Wiki that has a lot of good examples of the Design Patterns specific to PHP.

Recently i came across another site dedicated to PHP Patterns, Patterns for PHP is another Wiki that has a lot of good explanations as well as code examples so that you get a bit more info about what the patterns are about as well as seeing the code that goes with it.

Both sites are great resources to have in your bookmarks for when you get stuck, or just want to expand your Pattern knowledge.

Before you get started on those sites however, here’s a good introduction at Dev Articles

I was watching a show the other night about a photographer called Gregory Crewdson. It showed many different pieces he’s produced and he also spoke about where he gets his inspiration from and the messages he’s trying to portray.

He has a great style, uses rich colours and goes to a lot of effort for a few photos. They went to a few of his photo shoots and showed the process in which he goes through for a shot. A lot of the scenes that he sets up take about three days before the photos are taken. He uses cinematic lighting and cameras to produce really high quality photos that have great colour and richness about them.

The stories that he sets up are mostly based on a similar subject and he gets the actors really involved in what he’s doing and the end result is fantastic. The detail of the photos is great and seems like nothing is missed.

I’ve not been able to find many sites that have any good examples of his work and i don’t think he has a website or blog. I did come across this section on the nytimes which has a few good examples of his work, but i would really like to see more and higher quality as well.

Although i’ve not yet entered the world of photography, as much as i would like to and intend to in the future, this sort of work gives me great inspiration and i’ll be looking out for more stuff like this.

Check out this video with a new feature for Windows:

Hopefully it will be included with Vista. Or better still as service pack so we can share our pain even sooner.

A few years ago i came across this Starburst commercial. It instantly caught my eye and i’ve kept a copy ever since. As far as i know this wasn’t aired on Aussie TV.

Since originally viewing the advertisment there have been a number of Starburst ads have been made to target the Aussie market, being more Australian based than previous commercials.

One that i particularly like is about a boy in a bubble. Most of the time the ad is shown as a shortened version, however i find it funny eveytime i view it.

The ad starts with a delivery man entering a house and dropping off the delivery, pumping up a new bubble for the boy to move into. While pumping it up he says, “So ahh, what’s the deal anyway, not allowed out of this?”. The boy is then moved from the current small bubble he’s lived in his whole life into a new bigger bubble.

Upon moving from one bubble to the next the delivery man chews on a Starburst, spurting juicey goodness all over the boy. The boy then shakes saying, “My sensitive skin, my sensitive skin. But it’s so fruity. My skin. Juicy too.”.

I’m not sure what it is about this ad, but every time it’s shown i have a laugh. Some people that i’ve spoken to about it like it, others hate it. Anyway check it out and you can decide for yourself. This is a full length version of the commercial.

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and there seems to be a few cobwebs forming. As it happens when you’re busy, the dust and cobwebs build up around you without you even realising. So while i’ve been busy i haven’t had much time to do much surfing, reading or blogging.

In an attempt to clear some of the clutter i’ve got a few things that i’ve come across when i’ve not been hard at it.

Firstly this is a great idea, it’s called AjaxAMP and it’s allows you to access Winamp on your computer so you can stream your music to a web browser anywhere! There have been other plugins, etc. for Winamp in the past, however this is using the ever popular Ajax technology to play your music through a standard browser. Haven’t had a situation yet where i’ve really needed it, but i’m sure it will come in handy in the future.

A while ago on SBS i watched a documentary about people running around city and urban areas, doing freestyle tricks with nothing but their feet. I’ve not been able to find the name of what it’s called, but it looks pretty crazy. They use things like stair cases, handrails and other structural objects as obstacles. They even jump from building to building. It looks great when it’s done well. Anyway here’s a commercial that’s using that particular sport to advertise, it’s called BBC Rush Hour.

While i’m on the whole video thing and talking about commercials, here is a great advertisement for Coke. It’s a 3D animation and it’s great how each of the stages happen. It’s one of those chain reactions where each thing that happens affects the next part along the chain, until the end. Anyway check it out at Motiongrapher.

Yet another great video that i’ve come across recently is about an automated graffiti sprayer. This is neat invention and with the addition of colours, an possible the fineness of quality tweaked the possibilities would be amazing. Take a look at the automated graffiti sprayer.

Well that’s it for the moment just a quick post. Hopefully things will settle down a bit and i’ll be able to write a bit more soon.