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seeminglee

seeminglee

SML = See-ming Lee = Design + Technology + Marketing Strategy
Continuing to push technology's limitations to solve complex business and design challenges in powerful + integrated ways.

SML = 李思明 = 設計 + 科技 + 營銷策略
繼續推進科技制限來解決複雜的商業和設計挑戰.

Blog

Jun 12, 2008

  • Firefox Mobile Concept Video

    Mozilla Labs posted a demo video of the Firefox Mobile on their site today and it's highly innovative using just a single-touch interface — providing yet another great example of how limitations can incubate innovation.

    The interaction design is really sweet. For more information, check out the detailed description of all the features on Aza Raskin's blog. (Aza is the head of user experience at Mozilla Labs)


    Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

    via LifeHacker

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

  • Windows Vista

    Recently I bought a new computer, because my nifty XPC is really starting to feel old. The computer comes with Vista. Because of all the bad press that it has had, I was really worried how it will turn out.

    The computer arrived a few weeks ago and I panic: I wonder how I can possibly get use to the Aero glass window title bars with the dirty smudging blurred effect. It irritates me. It's not clean.

    But since I'm stuck with it, I had no choice but to customize my experience and make it better. It's been almost a month now and after much tweaking and adjusting (plus switching to Vista Aero Basic mode), it really is not that bad.

    The single-panel scrolling program file list was awkward at first, but now that I have used it for a while, I find it to be quite usable. Production level jump, and I'm no longer sticking five million icons into my quick launch bar anymore.

    To paraphrase Zuzana Licko, "people read best what they read most" (Source: AIGA), I believe that "people use best what they use most".

    Recommended reading
    + Arstechnica: Windows Vista: more than just a pretty face

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Jun 11, 2008

  • Flickr Maps

    Flickr kept on pumping out new features, like this map view, but I don't know how to get to it on their UI unless I type it into the URL:

    www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/map

    SML Flickr Map / 2008-06-10 / SML Screenshots (by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML)

    One thing I do like about this UI is that it only shows the related places relevant to the currently displayed photostrip, and only photos that are geo-tagged are displayed here.

    The default view looks at the most recent photos only, with the option to sort by interestingness.

    Other recently launched features include the ability the explore the world and places, allowing the user to either find out about popular cities, or little known destination — which is a great way to learn about the diversity of culture and humanity.

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

May 09, 2008

  • Beatport = Excellent source of electronica

    I never really got into buying songs online. When iTunes Store first opened, I bought a few albums from it because I own an iPod, but very quickly I was deterred by the fact that I can't even play my iTunes purchases on my Squeezebox because of the DRM-protection.

    Annoyed by the situation, I subscribe to Rhapsody Unlimited, which let me cue up pretty much anything I want for a low monthly subsription fee of $12.99. When I find something I really want to own, I just go buy the CD and rip it to MP3 so I can play it anywhere.

    Then Amazon introduced Amazon MP3 Downloads, and it changed everything. Really, what's not to love about being able to purchase DRM-free MP3s encoded at 256k? I thought that the 1-click and ship to feature was evil in getting many books that I probably do not need then.. that's until I discover the even more instantly gratifying 1-click and download MP3 :)

    Just when I thought that there can't be anything better than 256k DRM-free MP3 downloads, I discovered Beatport yesterday. Beatport offers 320k DRM-free MP3! To top it off, it even offer WAV (16-bit 44 kHz) and 192kbps M4A!

    Beatport / 2008-05-08 / SML Screenshots (by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML)

    Little did I know, the site was actually launched in 2004, and the latest version as seen above was released in August 2006. Beatport focuses on electronic music specifically, with an eye squarely focusing on DJs and electronica lovers. In other words, it's made for me.

    The content is top-notch, and I am able to get to a lot of remix tracks that I would not otherwise been able to get my hands onto if I were to browse on mainstream music sites (such as those described above).

    Don't take my word for it, listen to some of the tracks available on their site on this Beatport Player:

    Go to Beatport.comGet These TracksAdd This Player


    Highly recommended!

    Related SML Universe
    + SML Music
    + SML Remix Music
    + Symphonic Electronica

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

May 01, 2008

Apr 29, 2008

  • Ten Thousand Cents

    Ten Thousand Cents is a digital artwork that creates a representation of a $100 bill. Using a custom drawing tool, thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of the bill without knowledge of the overall task. Workers were paid one cent each via Amazon's Mechanical Turk distributed labor tool. The total labor cost to create the bill, the artwork being created, and the reproductions available for purchase are all $100.

    The project was a collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima.

    Here's a demo on Vimeo:


    Ten Thousand Cents from Ten Thousand Cents on Vimeo.

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Apr 26, 2008

  • Yahoo! Live

    http://live.yahoo.com/

    Kind of like Kyte, except with better UI – but it does not do mobile stream which Kyte does.

    In a gist: Yahoo Live allows anyone with a Yahoo ID to broadcast video stream from multiple users at the same time. Y! Live was previously used at the Winter Music Conference which streamed live video stream from different events: http://live.yahoo.com/evt/wmc/

    Y! Live is currently in an experimental release, and only standard embeds are supported (i.e. no Facebook + MySpace integration which Kyte offers)

    Bonus: you can follow @ylive on Twitter to see if there’s anyone broadcasting live from the site: an interesting idea to get audience.

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

  • Dipity = RSS-driven interactive timeline

    Found this nifty site called Dipity yesterday which will turn any RSS feeds (Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, you name it) into an interactive timeline.

    The most straight-forward thing to do is of course to visualize your own data:
    <script src="http://www.dipity.com/user/seeminglee/timeline/See_ming_Lee/embed"></script>

    Since it's RSS-driven, you can create anything. Here's a visualization of IconSpam:

    <script src="http://www.dipity.com/user/seeminglee/timeline/IconSpam/embed"></script>

    http://www.dipity.com/user/seeminglee/timeline/IconSpam

    Source: via Lifehacker

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Apr 23, 2008

  • PicLens = Image browsing made easy

    I don't know how I managed to not know anything about PicLens until today.

    PicLens is a browser plug-in which transforms image streams into a full-screen browsing experience. I installed the Firefox extension this morning and I'm in image surfing heaven moments after.

    Here's a quick demo on YouTube before my review:



    I have been on Flickr for a while now and have accumulated a lot of contacts over time. All of my non-friend contacts on Flickr are folks that I have made a decisive choice to maintain contact because I respect their photographic creation. 1000+ sounds like a lot, but when you consider that more than 24 million people are active on Flickr everyday, a thousand is actually quite a small amount.

    While my intention is to be amazed by my colleagues' work, the paging mechanism + thumbnail clicking has also become rather annoying overtime. I tried using the Slideshow module to go through my contacts' photos, but the 200 count limit imposed by Flickr still create some problem.

    PicLens does not impose image count limit to any browsing. The browsing model is also so fluid, transparent and intuitive that require zero learning-curve.

    With this tool, I did something I have never done on Flickr today:
    1. I browsed through every single image posted to my contacts' recent photos.
    2. I browsed through the entire photostream from a contact I recently added.

    There is no way I could have tolerated this process if I were to do this in Flickr's native interface. It has also replaces the need for flickrleech now, which I must say have served me quite well before PicLens.

    But PicLens does not only do Flickr, it also does Facebook, YouTube, Google Image Search, Yahoo Image Search, and the list goes on... I tested it on Google Image Search and had the first tolerable experience on Google Image Search today.

    This tool is indispensible. Highly recommended!

    Related SML Universe
    + SML Tools
    + SML Wiki: PicLens

    Source: via IconSpam

    ©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe

Apr 16, 2008

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