My Little DrummerBot

Yay! finally took the time to finish a little Arduino project.
It's a another bot, more specific: a web controlled drummerbot!

Yes yes, the same old trick: web interfaces to physical objects: Me LUVS them.
Give me an Arduino and a browser and I'll build you your rainbow

Hey, I feel a song comming up!

Tap the drum pattern on your phone and this little bot will rock it!

 



You control it like most drum computers: you draw the beats on a pattern of sixteen dots, perfectly suited for generic 4/4 rhythms.
There a 8 lines, each controlling 1 servo motor.

Most of the servo's have a percussion item both on the left and the right, that's why the pattern buttons have 3 states: off, left, right.
 That makes 14 distinct percussion sounds for the drummerbot.

The pattern in the webbrowser is packed into a string, which get send to the Arduino via HTTP.
You can use a wifi module and a http server on the Arduino, or you can use another device attached to the Arduino through a comm port.
The Arduino receives the string, unpacks it back to a pattern and simple loops over the steps controlling each servo.

the "DrummerBot Step Seqeuncer V 0.01 very-much-alpha" page is here

You can also download the Arduino code here.

I must admit: the drums sound a bit dry without amplification though.
I recorded everything into Ableton Live and did the final mix there. (Shocking, right? The videoclip is actually NOT a live performance :-) )

I'm specifically fond of the "Horns"
They are 2 little fans with a servo pushing a piece of plastic against the blades.
A hell of a noise but when you add heaps of fuzz, chorus and overdrive effects they are pretty convincing.
I call them F*CK-YEAH-HORNS

If you want to jam along yourself: hop over this saturday to Barcamp Antwerpen, where I'll be giving a presentation with/about the bot.

Let's play!

Warning! contains facts, analyst says

Analyst says that 50% of you will read this blogpost.
How about you, are you reading this post?

This is part 2 of the "How to be a full time tech blogger" series.

I've done some extensive analysis myself by reading less then half a dozen blogposts - in specific, 4  blogposts about the analysis of the effect of the new iPad.
Boy Genius reports: "Canaccord Securities analyst Mike Walkley says ..." that "Android tablets can’t compete with the iPad"
Meanwhile, just one day before, the same blog claims that "Analytics firm Strategy Analytics reports ..." that "Android tablets finally dent iPad market share"
At the same time, "global market intelligence and consulting firm IDC" predicts that Android tablets will overtake the iPad in 2016.
Hey, but what do they know, they're just market intelligence and consulting dudes, not analysts like "Needham analyst Charlie Wolf" who sees that "Apple’s iPad will still dominate tablet market after a decade"

Confusing? not at all, that's the beauty of it: since everything is an opinion, everybody is right!

Currently I'm writing a whitepaper on a method of analysis of technology related articles aiming to chart the relationship between relevant info and specific vocabulary,syntax and grammar.
I don't have any hot graphics for you just yet, but I do have some useful insights I'm willing to share:

• the amount of the word "analysis" seems directly proportional to the amount of "IMPORTANT RELEVANT INFO"  in the article
• the location of the word "analysis" is a duality: small to normal amounts of "IMPORTANT RELEVANT INFO" seem to prefer the word "analysis" at the start of the sentence but for the greatest impact, the really big "IMPORTANT RELEVANT INFO" put the word at the end, right after the comma. e.g. "in 4 decades time, plain paper will be completely replaced by electronics, analyst says"
• Every "call to action" doubles the "IMPORTANT RELEVANT"-value of the preformentioned IMPORTANT RELEVANT INFO.

Let me clarify that last point.
Every writer knows that every blogpost should end with a big fat "Call to Action" - right?
No post is worth reading - let alone worth writing - without one.
Don't take my word for it - everybody says so
To really spice up your point, you must engage your readers, pull them in, get them clicking - and the ultimate weapon of choice is "ask them for their opinion so they can be an authorative analyst too" , right?

It's all a matter of efficiency.
What's the most time consuming part of writing non-fiction articles?
It's checking the facts.

Now here it is: the golden tip:
Everytime you write about what someone else says or predicts or sees some interesting correlations happen

1. You don't have to hunt for news yourself as someone else already has written it down for you
2. There are no facts. Ergo:  you never can go wrong.
3. Lifting the simple fact of fact-checking out of the equation, cuts your valuable writing time in half.

That's not a Win-Win , that's a Win-Win-Winning!
Cover it up by asking your reader for their analysis and BOOM! the easy-peasy never-wrong instant formula for filling up your tech blog.

Everyone can do it - so can you.

So, What do you think?
Aren't you glad you've read this highly valuable important relevant piece of info?

whatever versus whatever

Marco Arment "translates" (or trashes) The Ars Technica Galaxy Tab 10.1 review.

Translation: Android tablets have managed to copy the iPad's hardware well enough - the easy part - but have failed to provide good software and significant third-party app choice - the hard part.

So, with similar hardware with similar capabilities selling at similar prices, why should someone choose an Android tablet over an iPad?

Only die-hard Android fans should buy this, and even most of them won't enjoy it.

Dude, why so narrow minded?
You love your iPad. Good for you.
Why is it so hard to see that other people have other needs, tastes and preferences?
The ongoing Android versus IOS debate is a moot point.
You know that shouting game? 2 groups of kids shouting which is the better color, Red or Blue? 
Same thing.
(and FYI, scientific study shows that red seems to have the upper hand )
It's like arguing which soccer team is better, FS Barcelona or Manchester United.
Which is the better car? BMW or Mercedes ?

In fact: even more scientific studies point out that the love for all things Apple is like a religion
No point in arguing.
People are grasping at whatever they can just to defend "their side": objectivity is for the weak!

I too have my preference and without emotional arguments I can simply observe my own behaviour:
I'm not a die-hard Android fan but I'm a die-hard tablet fan.
I have both an iPad and Android tablets in various sizes.
The iPad is a very nice toy and yet: when I crash in the couch, when I'm on the train, when I'm answering nature's call in the bathroom, when I'm in a meeting ... it's an Android tablet that's with me.
As smooth and fun as the iPad may be, the Android tablets are just more functional and easier for the things I want to do.
I'm not saying an Android tablet is better, I'm saying it's better suited for me.

If mister Arment can't see why some people prefer an Android tablet over the iPad then he certainly isn't troubled with an overly broad perspective.
Oh well, each to his own.

but if we all can agree that this debate is pointless, let's avoid polluting the interwebs (and my feedreader) with such garbage and focus on building kick ass applications, shall we.
On whatever platform, using whatever technology.

Closing down Telenet Yelo

As somewhat expected, Telenet didn't took long to respond to this article.
Here's the letter (In Dutch)

Mechelen, 20 april 2011
per post en per mail

Betreft: Yelo-applicatie

Geachte heer,

Wij verwijzen naar uw blogpost http://blog.stef.be/YeloMobile.

Na onze vorige waarschuwingen i.v.m. digiprogrammer dienen we 
opnieuw vast te stellen dat u  de gebruiksvoorwaarden van de 
Yelo-applicatie miskent.  Het mogelijk maken van Live TV 
streaming naar andere devices zonder toestemming van Telenet
is een duidelijke inbreuk op deze gebruiksvoorwaarden. 

Wij stellen u thans formeel in gebreke bovenvermelde activiteiten
onmiddellijk stop te zetten. Wanneer u deze activiteiten niet 
onmiddellijk staakt, zullen wij niet nalaten uw toegang tot de 
Yelo-applicatie te beëindigen en gerechtelijke stappen te 
ondernemen. Bovendien zal u Telenet dienen te vrijwaren en
te vergoeden voor elke schade, verlies, kost, vordering of uitgave
die voortvloeit uit het oneigenlijk gebruik van de Yelo-applicatie 
door uzelf of door anderen. 

Volledigheidshalve wensen wij u er op te wijzen dat het beschikbaar
maken van Yelo op Android devices slechts mogelijk is wanneer er
sluitende afspraken zijn met de rechtenhouders. Op dit ogenblik zijn
deze afspraken er nog niet. Acties zoals deze maken de afspraken
rond copyrights erg complex en hebben een contraproductief effect.

Onderhavig schrijven geldt als formele ingebrekestelling als naar
recht en wordt u verzonden onder voorbehoud van alle rechten en
zonder enige nadelige erkentenis.

Inmiddels verblijven wij,
Met de meeste hoogachting,

Voor Telenet nv,

xxx xx xxxxx,
Legal manager

Oh well ...
I'm a nice guy so I took down the project and removed the references to the internal Yelo API.
After all, my goal was to demonstrate that bringing the Yelo App to Android wouldn't require that much work as all the key elements are in place already.
Maybe I should write a letter asking for "official permission", heh, we'll see how that goes :-)

I was expecting they would quote their Terms of Use that it isn't allowed to reverse engineer their software or that it isn't allowed to ask other customers for their password.
But they didn't.
Instead they state that "making Live TV streaming available for other devices isn't allowed without permission"
This is not something I read in their terms but then again: I'm no lawyer, just a customer. (shouldn't these things be written for customers?)
Further they claim that bringing Yelo to Android is not possible "because the necessary licensing deals are not in place" 

Erm... they seem to forget that - as stated here and there - most Android devices support Flash and you can simply browse to yelo.be and look at the flash based TV streams ON your Android.
This works - but playing the m3u8 streams like I did works much better.

To all Android users who have the daring balls to open a website like www.yelo.be, log in and watch the flash base live stream: STOP! YOU ARE IN CLEAR VIOLATION!

No? So playing flash videostreams on a website doesn't require a seperate licensing, and playing http live streaming video in an app does?
OK ... if you say so.

Forgive me for breaking the news to telenet, but if that's true they have made themselves a HORRIBLE deal if they have to renegotiate their license for every platform or technique separately.
This almost sounds like the story that TV Channels wanted separate (and cumulative) licenses for rebroadcasting their channels using analog or digital channels.
Oh wait ... didn't Telenet went to court for that and WON? (and of course the Belgian Bloodhound gang of copyright societies appeals)
The reasoning behind their court action was that Telenet has an "All Rights Included" license for broadcasting some TV channels, so if it is allowed to broadcast it through analog cable, it is also allowed to broadcast it through digital cable.

The issue centers around a single question: have viewers the right to view content, for which they paid, anywhere in the home on any device?

The Telenet actions against the copyright societies in court seem to indicate that their stand is a clear: YES!
But if that's the case, why would viewing on iPhone be OK and on Android not?
That's not even a question of "digital" or "analog", it's a micro issue of "what platform"
It's like saying that you can watch digital TV on a Sony TV, but NOT on a Samsung one.

I get it of course: Telenet probably had to made some serious concessions to the TV Channels (and copyright societies) to even be able to stream SOME channels to SOME devices over the internet, and there comes this insensitive cowboy developer walking by, meddling with the precious balance between broadcasters and copyright holders.
But as time proves over and over again, when technology clashes with rigid business models, especially when digital content and intellectual property is involved, it is the business model that has to adapt, NOT the technology.
As for digital TV: Streaming to all kinds of devices can't be stopped

So, Telenet, with your new court victory in your pocket, don't let a small shrimp like me stand in your way and make it happen: Video content (for which customers have paid) available anywhere in the home on any device.

If you do, you'll certainly get my money as customer (As you do now already, lot's of money for lots of years, I might add :-) )

GO!

Update: Official reaction by Telenet after the ZDnet picked up the story and after lot's of retweeting on twitter. Thanks for all the support guys!
in short: Yes: you can use the yelo website on Android, no there won't be an Android app soon as the needed security and content rights are not sorted out yet.

Very weird:
1: What a mess: this - again - shows you better build a good webapp then to meddle around with native mobile apps.
2: I'm going to inform me about exaclty what rights customers (endusers) have with digital content. Apparently this is a legal swamp with some VERY bizar twists

Opening up Telenet Yelo: TV on your android

Part 2 in the Telenet Yelo series. (following this and this)

Update:
Due to a formal complaint from Telenet I have edited this post and removed all references to their internal API and closed down the demo program.



Telenet is working on an Android app for Yelo. Yes, but when will they release it, if ever?
Luckily, there's no need to wait.
As the Android platform get more and more mature, also the streaming video app gets better.
The HTTP Live streaming format that Apple invented and Yelo is using can now also be played on non iOS platforms like Android.
The only thing we need is the URL for the TV stream.
After some sniffing, here's a super easy way to get them.

the front door is located at *removed*

Where you replace *yourlogin* and *yourpass* with your telenet credentials.

You get a little XML in return stating something like

*removed*

That code in the response tag is your session ID.
You'll need that as the TV-streams are tied to your telenet account (you didn't think you're watching anonymous, did you?)

What TV channels are available is located at *removed* (it's an XML, so you might need to do a "view source" to see them)

Every channel has an ID.
e.g.

 *removed*

The livestream then is contructed as  *removed*

for the example above, that would be *removed*

That's it, nothing more to it.
if you copy that url into your browser on your iPhone or IPad it will play.

on Android 3.0, this should also work (theoretically, never tested it) but as most of us are on Android 2.2 or less, we need an extra tool.
Thankfully, BelgianWaves (who's also from Belgium, could you tell?) did the INCREDIBLE job of writing a http live stream player from scratch and released it as Mirage.
This has nothing to do with Yelo, it is a generic video player (and an Airvideo client, I might add - again: INCREDIBLE work by BelgianWaves) and it happens to play the yelo streams just fine.

Ok, this works, but copy/pasting urls and sessioncodes around is annoying and should be automated.
I wrote a little script that does exactly that: it takes your login and pass as input and returns a list of urls of all TV channels available.

The script is  *removed*. nothing fancy just a quick 1 file script.

As a demo - and for my own personal use - I wrapped in a little webfrontend at http://www.stef.be/projects/yelo/ (*offline*)

It works fine on any iOS device and on Android (with the help of Mirage)
Theoretically it might work on Safari on a recent (Snow Leopard) Mac, but that's untested.
In fact... I only tested it with my own login, but there's no reason it wouldn't work for all Telenet users.
One big note: the Yelo streams are tied to your IP address too and they only work when you're connected using a Telenet connection. It won't work on any other provider (yet ... but more on that another time)

Here are some screenshot from iOS
  

And an Android device playing Yelo TV

Have fun with it, and - for peeps sake - DON'T go entering your Telenet credentials in any webform you see, if you have any doubt that this or this is not safe, get the url's manually as described above. (or write your own script of course)

Probably for their (future) Android Yelo App, Telenet is using a different video streaming technology but in my opinion, maybe they should reconsider that.
HTTP Live streaming is turning into a valid video streaming technique for multiple platforms.
Android 3 has native support for it and Mirage supports it to.
You should think that Telenet is happy with that development, no?
They already have a decent HTTP Live streaming backend in place, serving their iPhone and iPad users.
It would be common sense to use that same backend for other devices, right?

That's not what Telenet must be thinking. On the contrary: they contacted the Mirage author and specifically asked them to stay away from Yelo.
Argh ... instead of saving themselves lot's of time and effort, they bully a small developer to halt his activities.
Come on, Telenet: the internet is open by design: locking your web services to your apps and your network only doesn't work and will never work. Someone will ALWAYS find a way around it.
Do yourself a favour and license the Mirage technical core, wrap it into your Yelo service and release it as Android client:  it will be far far cheaper (and faster) than developing your own solution.

Anyway: now with Yelo usable on Android devices, the next step is to make it usable from anywhere, even outside the Telenet network.
More on that in part 3.
Enjoy!

PS. Why is this post in English? Darn, I have written too much code lately :-)

Javascript library: 9-dot Pattern Lock

You have probably seen this on a touchscreen smartphone: to unlock it,  instead of typing a password you are presented with 9 dots and you have to draw a pattern.
It works great: drawing a shape on a small touch screen is far easier than typing on those bl**dy small keyboards AND far easier to remember too.
Once you've got used to it, typing passwords in general gets pretty annoying: you want to swipe your way through every login screen you see.

For my own mobile web apps, I wanted to replace that standard password box with a familiar pattern lock, but was surprised I couldn't find one that was targeted towards web apps.
Maybe it does exist but i missed it?

Oh well, Do It Yourself! : my never ending mantra that I keep repeating over and over and over and over again :-)

Enter the 9-dot pattern lock javascript library.
It's pretty much drag-n-drop: just include the JS file and give your password box the class "patternlock" : It will be replaced with a nice touchy patternlock.
I wanted it to be free of any dependencies on frameworks like jQuery or Moo so it's completely standalone.

A live demo is at http://www.stef.be/dev/javascript/patternlock/

It's targeted towards large touchscreen devices such as Android phones/tablets, iPhone and IPad, but it works fine on any major desktop and mobile browser.

The idea is that each dot is a number from 1 to 9, when you draw a pattern, you're actually entering numbers into the password box.

It's free and open source, grab it here if you find it useful.

Parameters

• it has 2 parameters
  • patternlock.autoInit
    If set to true all input elements with the className "patternlock" will be replaced
    If set to false you have to manually initiate it by patternlock.generate(IDofElement)
  • patternlock.autoSubmit
    If set to true your form will be submitted when you stop drawing the pattern
    If set to false the user will have to submit it manually

Possible enhancements for the future:

• maybe rewrite it as a jQuery plugin ?
• it would be much cooler to use the HTML5 canvas element to draw the dots and lines in runtime instead of using images. But since that's not supported on all browsers, I used images to keep it compatible.

Known issues

• the default Android browser has a really slow "ontouchmove" trigger: if you draw very fast on your android phone, you will miss some dots. (I hate to admit it but the iOS browser clearly is the most potent mobile browser for touch stuff at the moment)
• If you draw outside of the box you can connect non-adjacent points. allthough that's perfecty fine, no lines will be drawn between those points.
• Using multiple patternlocks on the same page probably won't work.

If you bump into other issues or have any improvements: let me know!

GarageBand for iPad - a review

A big splash this week for the iPad: Apple released GarageBand.
I'm not going to write a complete review for it, there are more then enough off them already.

In short

• Yes, its amazing
• Yes, it's awesome
• Yes, it looks so gorgeous and sexy you want to lick your screen
• Yes, it's one of the coolest and slickest apps on the iPad
• Yes, it's incredible easy to use and fun
• Yes, if you have an iPad, you should buy it
• But..... but but but.

It could have so easily have been THE ultimate music app that would dwarf all other music apps on whatever mobile platform.
But it's not.

Apple bashing? certainly not

This is not going to be an Apple-bashing piece. When it comes down to music apps on mobile devices, i love Apple: they are lightyears ahead of any other platform. (again: when it comes down to music creation apps)
On Android, for example, I can count the amount of decent music apps on 1 hand and STILL have several fingers left to pick my nose.

This is going to be a usability piece.

If you give GarageBand on iPad  to your kid or your mum, no doubt they will enjoy themselves silly whipping out great sounding tunes like it's nothing.
It's great to toy around with and it's fun to use. So easy!
And that's the key: "it's great to toy around with"

If you would give it to an (amateur) musician with the actual intention to create something unique, it would be a frustrating experience beyond repair.

Before you start screaming that GarageBand iPad is not meant for the half serious musician, ask yourself why not!
Clearly it has one of - if not THE - most powerful music engines on the iPad and it hosts some very advanced features.
But at the same time it lacks some super obvious things that most other music apps DO have.
I'm not talking about advanced stuff, but basic things like copy/paste, or the ability to do small edits after you recorded a track, or fades,... things that are plain necessary if you want to do more than toying around.

Some examples

For example: you've just played and recorded the best piece ever on the touchpiano. It gets recorded to midi, nicely visualized in the sequencer.
There's one spot you played a note out of rhythm or out of key.
Currently there's no way to fix that, other than re-record it.
Would it harm the fun or usability in any way to add midi editing?

Or the lack of copy paste: you can't copy one track to another project, or copy a sample to another app.
This is an issue  that is solved already a long time ago with the system wide pasteboard, first made popular by Intua and perfected by Sonoma.
About all music apps support it, allowing you to copy paste your sounds between apps, creating your own perfect mix.
All music apps ... except for GarageBand.

Musicians create music with whatever they find.
They build the best grooves with Rebirth, record the fattest guitars with Amplitube, fine-tune the ultimate synths with Nanostudio, and then combine it all with the best sequencer for the final mix.
All this is already perfectly possible with the iPad, but not when you want to use GarageBand: there's no usable way to get your sound in or out GarageBand.
Connecting the iPad with your Mac and use the full GarageBand doesn't count (and doesn't function yet anyway)
I want a mobile studio, independent of other hardware device. If you have a Mac lingering around, you wouldn't use the iPad to record, you would use the full GarageBand.

Why?

Why didn't apple add those features?
Because they would stand in the way of the user experience?
Because they don't target the more demanding musicians?
Maybe, but that would imply that they see GarageBand on the iPad as a toy themselves. Does this then mean they see the iPad as a toy?

The answer is pretty obvious if you ask me:
If you have a Mac lingering around, you wouldn't use the iPad to record, you would use the full GarageBand.
The reverse is also true: if GarageBand on iPad could do all the things that the full GarageBand could, one wouldn't need a Mac ...
And there you have it. It's my opinion that Apple deliberately created a crippled version of GarageBand to avoid cannibalizing their Mac products.
This is the same reason the iPad is still forced to sync with bloody f*cking iTunes - with a cable none the less, how 20th century like.
It would be a far better user experience to let the iPad sync wirelessly, or not force it to sync at all, but then people would start using the iPad INSTEAD of a laptop, not NEXT TO a laptop.
Obviously, this would hurt the apple sales: they want to sell you 2 devices, not 1.
Yes, Apple values the user experience very high, but not nearly as high as making money.
That's perfectly fine, but this means they will not allow the iPad to be as good as it could. (why would they, its good enough already to sell millions and millions)

Obviously, this means a huge opportunity for other developers that don't have these restrictions.
The best example is the software for jailbroken iPads. It seems those "rogue" developers are the ones that are pushing the iPad forward the most and often Apple is copying the best gems of the jailbroken apps later on in their official software.
Things like multitasking and folders are examples of this.

An example of a super useful app for jailbroken devices that Apple yet has to copy is Retinapad, which enables the high res mode of iphone apps on your ipad.

But back to the point: in the regular app store there are also some true gems of music apps  that DO target the more demanding users.
No, they are not that slick, but double as useful.

Usability

One more example of how bad the usability sometimes get with GarageBand (and iPad in general):
Say you recorded a killer riff on the guitar, but you want to speed it up a bit for even more awesomeness. GarageBand can't do this (it can speed up midi tracks, but not samples)
Studio HD can.

Now if only there would be a way to get your track in studio HD ...

Oh wait! There is! its just a few clicks away (ahem ...)

You can export your track in Garageband

Then email it to yourselfves

Hey you got mail!
Luckily multitrack DAW can import samples from email attachments.

Your track gets imported in multitrack DAW
 

There you can copy it to the pasteboard.
 

Open studio HD, and paste it in a track, then alter the speed.
 

How's that for usability, eh? that was only 17 clicks, 3 apps and a roundtrip to the mailserver!

But wait, if you want to get your track back into GarageBand you're out of luck: there's no way to do that (that doesn't involve jailbreaking  your device)

Come on Apple, audio copy/paste is everywhere, surely this should be added in the next update.

And speaking of Studio HD: I don't know who copied who, but come on: the 5 months old Studio HD on the left, the brand new GarageBand on the right.
I kind of hope I'm missing something here...  Maybe those are standard iPad design guidelines or something?

Playing around

Not to be all talk and no action I created a very small tune with GarageBand.
The tune was recorded and arranged in about 15 minutes. Very Easy and fast.
The guitar is a cheap toy (acoustic!) guitar recorded with the internal mic.
The drums and Bass are "smart instruments"
Here's the tune.

Or download the mp3 file

Points

Good points

• very easy
• incredible slick touch based interface
• very powerful music engine: it's the only music app to my knowledge  that can combine midi and sample tracks
• perfect for jotting down fast music ideas
• accessible for everyone, no music knowledge required

Bad points

• no audio copy/paste
• no midi editing
• no fades
• very limited time signatures (only 4/4)
• currently no working export to full GarageBand

Conclusion

GarageBand for iPad is awesome, it really is, but it's a toy.
There's nothing wrong with that, its genuine fun to use.
It's also great as a fast and easy multitrack recorder if you want to record and edit on the move.
However, if you want to use your iPad as standalone recording studio, (like I do) there are far better options. Check out Multitrack DAW, Studio HD (which does time stretching!) or Beatmaker 2.
If you're a guitar player, Ampkit and Amplitube provide a much better sound, features and experience.


As a software developer, I marvel at the beauty and technical excellence.
As an amateur musician, I find it almost unusable.
Let's hope I'm completely wrong about Apple's strategy with GarageBand and they'll address its shortcomings in a next update.

In silence

Tinkering with digital audio, I love it!
A few months ago I was exploring the use of the Ipad as digital recording device.
A small tune came out of it.
nothing too fancy, just a piece made from scraps i created as test with various audio apps.
Great fun!

My plan was to draw a videoclip for it - also on the iPad.
Yes: ... draw ... even at 1 frame a second, it meant lot's of work and grew tired of it.
It's one of those things that end up on the "to do whenever I find some time for it" pile, which is dangerously close to the "never" pile.
This image is one frame of it. 



We'll see about the videoclip part, but here's the audio track already.

You can download the mp3 here
It's called "In Silence"

It's completely recorded on the iPad, only using iPad apps, the internal mic and a (real) acoustic guitar.
Why? Because making music using toys is fun!


The synths, bassline and effects are from Nano Studio


The drums are done with Beatmaker, which also functioned as copy/paste glue between apps.


The recordings of voice, guitar, final sequencing and mixing was done with multitrack DAW.

Conclusions: using the iPad as mobile music studio is fun.
Some pretty good results can be achieved, considering the cheap guitar I used and the internal mic.
There are some pretty awesome apps out there which make the iPad a valid mobile recording studio.

However, one has to jump through some really weird hoops if you want to combine multiple apps and get the most out of it.
The lack of (access to) a file system makes it sometimes daunting to get the samples and tracks from one app to another.
You end up spending as much time swapping apps and moving files around then to actually create some music.

It's Apples vision to prefer usability over features.
That's great, but sometimes they end up in the paradox that their quest for usability actually makes the product less useful.
As Einstein reportedly used to say: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." , right?

More on that later in my GarageBand for iPad review

My biggest disappointment of 2010

I really try to keep a positive mindset,
but sometimes I have to whine a bit :-)
Looking back at 2010, the biggest disappointment of the year is .... digital magazines.
The future looked so bright:
sexy consumer devices like the iPad would save the publishing industry and everyone would be happy.

Publishing software companies like Adobe rushed out digital publishing solutions like the Digital Publishing suite.
Every publisher and newspaper went head over heals to release some form of iPad app, pushing their digital content to thousands of eager new readers.

One slight problem: THEY ALL SUCK !
Really, everybody who's happy about the current state of iPad magazines must have had really low expectations.
Almost all publishers took the fast and easy approach and just whipped up some sort of image viewer offering their existing  print-ready documents to the screen.
Very understandable: it's the safest thing to do with the lowest amount of risky new investments.

As in most cases, the fast and easy approach rarely is the best one.
It results in substandard products that are a mere shadow of what they could have been.

Simply copying the paper based layout to a screen does NOT result in pleasant reading experience: as most readers screens are too small to display one standard printed page in a readable manner, you end up zooming and scrolling in all directions, hunting for the flow of an article.
So called "premium content" mostly consist of making  links clickable  and whacking YouTube video on top of static pages.

And it's such a shame: there's so much great content out there and thousands of people willing to pay for it.
I would gladly pay for a decent magazine, after all creating content is a tough job, there's a reason why there are professional journalists.
Is it too mush to ask for an enjoyable reading experience?
Stop converting paper pages to the screen: it didn't work for the web and it certainly doesn't work for e-readers.

Digital publishing still is a niche, but the only way to expand it is to create a compelling product specifically targeted for e-readers.
To all publishers: take a look a the various eBook readers as they already solved most of you problems

• offer customizable fonts
• offer adjustable font sizes and FLOW your text: there's nothing as annoying zooming in and having to scroll from left to right constantly because the text doesn't wrap.
• provide both landscape and portrait layouts. yes, that's more work for your understaffed design team but it's a need-to-have , not a nice-to-have
• DON'T publish you magazine as a series of static  image files, unless you're a comic. Keep text as text, images as images.
  This is an example of a zoomed in page of 'The Tijd" newspaper app (which is a series of jpeg images)
  
  It's hurting my eyes! 
• integrate multimedia directly from the start into the articles, don't add them later as some form of icing on the cake: don't decorate, design.
• don't launch your readers outside your magazine with your external links, handle them internally.
• avoid scrolling, paginate
• if it's too expensive to design a digital version of your magazine, leave out the design and just offer the articles as text.
  Whatever you do, DON'T simply reuse your paper design.

Reading an eBook on e.g. iBooks, Stanza or a Kindle is relaxing and comfortable because they follow those rules.
Reading a magazine or a newspaper on the iPad is frustrating and annoying.

One shining good example is the Wired tablet app: very well made, good use  of media, optimized layout.
The only thing missing is scalable fonts.

The worst examples are all those Magworld magazines. For example the music magazine OOR. That's one example that is SCREAMING for a digital multimedia version, but in its current offering it's completely crap on a digital device. What a missed opportunity ....

Am I alone in this frustration? Some seem to think so, but again: don't settle for "good enough"
"good enough" won't stick, and ultimately: "good enough" won't keep selling.

Maybe I missed some magazines that DO get it right?
I hope so, please let me know.

iMinds - and why I was wrong about Inca

Last year I entered not less then 3 projects for the INCA awards.
This year I didn't participate, citing the usual wrong reasons: no time, no good ideas, no time ...

The main reason I didn't participate perhaps was i couldn't really place the main concept of "inclusive society".
After all, i like to do little creative webprojects just for fun, not for commercial reasons, not for strategic reasons and certainly not to help "save the world".
With all due respect to their creators, lots of "inclusive society" project seem to miss the mark completely, forgetting to ask the question whether an internet-centeric approach is the right one for a society related problem.

One example: "I could Use"
It's a social platform for neighbours, even if you don't now any of them. So if you need something, e.g. borrow a shovel or something, you can post a message on the platform and your neighbours can respond.

With all respect for Kai Aras, the creator, if you want to get to know your neighbours, or get them to borrow you something, maybe sitting behind your computer posting messages on the internet is not most effective, nor the most social approach.

Get out of your house! talk to people! there's a whole world out there where the web is completely irrelevant!
(Again, I have nothing but respect for Kai, Check out his website for some really cool projects)

Thinking about the "inclusive society" I got the feeling I had nothing to offer that would address some "real" problem.

I was wrong - i often am.

Last week on Tedx it was Rik Torfs that brillantly managed to capture all the presentations in one sentence:
"The ideas that will save the world are rooted in profound lightness, not in empty seriousness"

Exactly: maybe the best projects that will change the world and really help society don't aim to be too serious.
Maybe it's a good aim to "do a cool project" and the part about saving the world will be a nice side effect.

Like Sebastian Thrun, with his driverless cars.
What would have been the driving idea behind this?
"Let's solve the traffic problem, next question: how?" or "let's build a cool robotic car!" 
Probably the latter, no ?

That's why I was wrong about skipping Inca this year.

Still, the most interesting projects are the ones that form a bridge between the web and the physical world.
Yes, yes, The internet of things is still here.



The Inca awards will be presented on iMinds, a part of the Future Internet conference week and guess what the keynote speech of iMinds will be about? Indeed: the internet of things.

I'm totally going - hoping to talk to some Inca participants. I'm especially interested in the Immersive Experiences presentations like the "immersive walk through Brussels" from Philippe Bekaert (and others)

Another event from the Future internet week that I'm looking forward to is the übercool TRONcafé.
Free entrance! What more do you want?


Anyway, stuff like this and "innovative" (un)conferences in general are a great way for developers like me to get a boost.

Let me repeat myself, this time for all developers, no matter what your day job is:
Get out of the office sometimes, go talk to people, go visit and participate in conferences, barcamps, usergroups - it's brainporn and you'll love it.

TEDx Brussels 2010

I was not too fond of TEDX Brussels last year.

Their "We're so cool" attitude really bothered me so i was a bit suspicious for the 2010 edition.

I was wrong: The organization was really strong, everybody was very friendly and I was glad to notice much of the arrogance was gone.

TEDx events are hugely hyped and the expectation of seeing something truly amazing is impossibly high.
But was it a disappointment?

No, not at all. With the fast spreading digital media today it's really hard to bring something new, let alone "mind blowing", but still it is really inspiring to hear a focused person speak with passion about a subject he or she is clearly an expert in.

Sebastian Thrun: Star of the day - without any doubt - was SEBASTIAN THRUN who talked about his kick ass achievements in driverless cars, showing some AMAZING footage of the DARPA Challenge race and his robotic-super-team inventions resulting in working driverless cars TODAY.

the other speakers where

sometimes inspiring

Marc Millis: "Pioneers are people, not organizations"

sometimes too commercial

Dambisa Moyo: "If you want to know the solution to this problem: buy my book"

sometimes funny

Marc Luyckx Gishi: "My career as catholic priest went very well, until i met my wife"
"In that time there was still some good thinking at the European top ... in that time ..."
"Me is Frrt ... you is Heing!! ... so .. .go!"

sometimes predictable

Nicholas Negroponte: some things never change: Nicholas Negroponte still is a self absorbed cocky twad, but he's brilliant and an excellent speaker.

sometimes disregardable

Lynne McTaggart: "let's all hold hands and send our positive thoughts to heal this person"

sometimes on autopilot

William E. Kennard: "The goverment will support you blah blah blah, we need structures, blah blah blah Europe USA partnership blah blah blah"

Rik Torfs: Pleasantly surprising was Rik Torfs, who clearly knows exactly how to play an audience and presented a remarkably insightful closing without his usual tacky jokes.

all in all, TEDx was not life-changing but still one of the best ways to spend your day.

What do I take home from it?
"A believe that as long as brilliant people get the change to do their thing, there's still hope for the human race"
So for me, the TEDx vibes clearly worked this time.
Hooray!

The first picture in this post is by Pieter Baert , who made lot's more of great pics.

Steffest - 09/12/2010 20:35:07

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Ipad Sketchbook

This is a preview of a little project i'm working on.

2 weeks ago i composed and recorded a new song using only the iPad and its internal microphone.
The goal was to see if and how a "consumer" device like the ipad could be used to "create" content.
Of course it can, and it turned out to be great fun too!

At the time i thought creating the videoclip also entirely on the ipad would be a bit of a stretch but after some fiddling around I got completely hooked on Sketchbook Pro.
As i quite like drawing, I think I tried all the drawing and sketching apps I could find in the AppStore.
In the end there are only a few good ones, and only one that clearly is on top: Autodesks Sketchbook Pro.

Back in the day my favourite sketching material was soft pastels on paper - creating very 16-year-old-stuff when i was 16 years old 
like this


Sketchbook on the iPad  gives me (almost) the same direct finger feeling of pushing and swiping and brushing and smudging with nothing in between you and your sketch. No pencil, no brush, no pen, ... just some color and your fingers.
I tried every tablet since the first tabletpc's in early 2000 but this combination of great finger specific software like sketchbook and great finger specific hardware like the iPad is the first one that really delivers as  intuitive and transparent drawing tool.
As I think of it, sketchbook was also the first drawing application I ever tried on any iOS device: on  @Topanga's iPhone at a twoooze with a very quick sketch of @mathiassbaert.
It was also the first time I thought "hmmm . . . . Maybe those Apple devices have some strong points after all" :-)

Anyway, Now I find myself handdrawing a (small) videoclip - stitching every frame together with ReelDirector
I'm about halfway through with about 80 sketches to go (at an astonishing 1 frame a second).
Thank god for the NMBS and their never-ending train delays which give me plenty of time to doodle along.

I hope to be finished in a week or two.
The biggest problem: blisters on my fingertips!