I love a good information graphic and this is a great one.
Go to the link and work your way through the layers…
and to think your mortgage/credit card debt was an issue?!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/23/sunday-review/an-overview-of-the-euro-crisis.html
Paul Cocksedge (great name) has created the most gorgeous speaker for an iPhone.
He uses an old record and heat moulds the plastic into a funnel shape which amplifies the sound.
http://www.paulcocksedge.co.uk/paulcocksedge.html
I went online and tried to order one but thought better of it…the cost, the postage, the wait…
So we made one.
Here is an image of our unattractive, yet highly effective speaker made from a camping mug and a sheet of A3 paper.
A more attractive version would involve a groovy music poster and a bucket.
This is a great app but this info on how to use it is even better.
The iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch photo-sharing app Instagram has signed up more than 4 million users since it first launched in late 2009. It has also spawned an ecosystem of Instagram-related iPhone, Web, and Mac apps, as well as print services and other products. Here’s a look at a few of the many fun things you can do with your Instagram images and feeds.
The Instamap iPad app is a slick Instagram client for the iPad that allows you to browse photos by location or tag. View geotagged images from around the world as pins on a map, or switch to the attractive gallery view. Instamap also makes it easy to add or delete Instagram subscriptions, “like” photos, and leave comments. And it’s updated in real time, so there’s no waiting around for fresh pics.
To see a satisfying breakdown of your Instagram statistics, turn to Statigram. Log in with your Instagram username and password, and then start quantifying. See your most popular images and filters, find out the day of the week you post on the most, view your tags at a glance, and take a peek at your Instagram followers. You can even have your stats emailed directly to you if you feel like sharing them on Instagram or just reveling in your own popularity.
Instagram has a much-beloved set of 15 retro photo filters that you can apply to an image. For iPhone photographers who want more options, check out the 100 Cameras in 1 app. It has 100 poetically named effects that you can mix and match. The app has also just added Instagram support with its latest update, so you can take a photo, edit it in 100 Cameras in 1, and then export it directly to Instagram.
Enjoy browsing Instagram photos on a device with more screen real estate: your Mac. The $2 InstaDesk Mac app is a fetching way to look through your Instagram feeds on a desktop. View images by popularity and tags, see everyone who follows you, or find new people to add to your Instagram circle. All the usual Instagram interactivity is here, including the ability to leave and receive comments. You can even save your favorite images to your computer. Unfortunately, you can’t upload images to Instagram from a Mac.
Instagram automatically saves each photograph as a 612-by-612-pixel, 72-ppi file. This is pretty small, even by iPhone-photography standards (the iPhone 4 can capture 2592-by-1936-pixel images). To make a print of an Instagram shot, you should start by increasing the ppi in an image editor. At the recommended 240 ppi, you’ll get a sharp 2.5-by-2.5-inch print. If you really want it larger, you can blow the image up to 4 by 4 inches, but that will lower the dpi to 153 ppi. The print will be larger, but it will also appear slightly softer and pixelated.
You’re on vacation, the scenery is stunning, and you want to send a postcard to your technophobe grand-father. The free Postagram iOS app will turn your Instagram image into a real postcard, add your custom message, and send it via snail mail to any address you enter. The app is free but each postcard costs $1. You’re not limited to sending Instagram images—you can use any shot from your Camera Roll.
Have you ever noticed how adorable your Instagram photos look in thumbnail view? Printstagram will turn your Instagram photos into a book of 252 little stickers ($10). If tiny doesn’t do it for you, go big with a 20-by-40-inch poster of your tiled Instagram images ($25). If you’d prefer to print your own fun projects, check out the free templates from Printstagram. It will automatically lay out your Instagram photos in the templates and let you download the PDF.
Eats, shoots and leaves a book written by Lynn Truss, published in 2003. Truss bemoans the state of punctuation in the United Kingdom and the United States and describes how rules are being relaxed in today’s society. Her goal is to remind readers of the importance of punctuation in the English language by mixing humour and instruction.
Here is the original joke on punctuation that the book title came from…
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
‘Well, I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’
Do yourselves a favour and read some poetry.
There are so many different types of poetry that I would bore you trying to explain.
Have a look at this site – types-of -poetry - and give yourself a quick lesson…. if for no better reason than to reach for the wine whilst complimenting your friend on having unknowingly screamed upon a great heroic couplet!
Poetry is a beautiful introduction to words as art.
One of my favourites is E.E.Cummings…he uses grammar and the screwing with sentence structure to add layers to the poem.
‘pity this busy monster, manunkind’pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh
and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go
E. E. Cummings
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Here is a link to some more sage advice…
1. Voice - Like people, businesses (and their websites) have distinct personalities. If you sell trendy duds, you may want sassy, irreverent verbiage, but if you peddle paper, plain vanilla prose is fine.
Copyblogger has again given some great advice…
Using words that work with the people you’re trying to persuade.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Study and draw inspiration from great copy that works.
You have two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.
I came across this set of ads for a brewery which showcase this ideal….you don’t need to write the copy if it has already been said or written…
sounds like onomatopia…and it is when a word sounds like that which it is.
POP, SLAP, MEANDERING, GASH, ZIP…
It is a lovely tool to use when writing copy.
In an ad, or a poem you could look at all the words and choose the one that sounds most like the action.
Think RICE CRISPIES…SNAP, CRACKLE and POP
For example, in the last lines of Sir Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Come Down, O Maid’, m and n sounds produce an atmosphere of murmuring insects:
… the moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
