Robot Forest » Media

Visualize Your Fonts With MyFontBook

gjunkie — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:03:13 +0000

MyFontBook.com is pretty interesting. It will scan your computer for every font you’ve got installed and display them for you.

What can you do with it? Well, plenty of things. You can rate fonts, tag them, print proof sheets, get sample text, and more. You can even check out what paragraphs and symbols would look like with each font. The only thing you can’t do, which I tried to do instinctively was to drag fonts around to re-order them.

It’s great for designers needing to see sample text of multiple fonts at the same time. I highly recommend it.

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ABC’s V Airs Tonight, Here’s A Review

gjunkie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:20:32 +0000

A few months back I reviewed ABC’s new alien thriller (reboot) V.

Things happen a little too fast, there’s no mystery as to who the Visitors are and what they look like (they make immediate contact), the characters are very two dimensional, and the special effects are on par with Stargate SG-1. It’s as if they tried to make a very good, stylized show, but simply didn’t try hard enough.

Check out the rest of the review here.

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Prince Of Persia Film Trailer Is Out

gjunkie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:51:06 +0000

I gotta say it looks like a lot of fun. However, there were no “holy shit” moments in the trailer, so I’m not sure what that means for the actual movie. The special effects are amazing. But with the things that they can do these days I was hoping for some kick ass time-stopping scene to really juice up all the PoP fans out there.

Check out the trailer over at IGN.

I found the female voice-over a little annoying after a while, but still, I dig it. I hope Donnie Darko can pull off the Persian Prince.

I’ve been excited for this film for years, and you know what happens when that’s the case… you’ll always be disappointed. What I have to do now is let go of any expectations and hope that’s enough to enjoy it.

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Brizzly: Twitter And Facebook In One Place UPDATED

gjunkie — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:01:28 +0000

It’s a cool idea, and it’s not the first one to do such a thing. But it IS kinda slick. Brizzly displays Twitter and Facebook on their own separate interface with one click, so things don’t get cluttered.

Twitter side:
One of the best things about the Brizzly Twitter interface is the trends. Sure, it pulls the trends like every other service out there. But you’ll have to admit that half the time you have no idea what some of those trends are, right? Happens to me all the time. Brizzly allows you to put an explanation to a trend or amend a current explanation. Love it.

The twitter interface also does some neat things, like show you image uploads right in the tweet rather than having to click away to see the image. You can make groups, which are essentially like the newly released Twitter Lists.

Facebook Side:
This side doesn’t really have anything new. It’s pretty much the full Facebook interface right there with your news feed, your wall, and your information. Still it’s nice to have that. You can reply to comments written on your wall or posts, etc.

For lovers of service consolidators out there, Brizzly is an obvious thing to try. Check it out and let me know what you think.

UPDATED: I’ve got 10 Brizzly invite codes. Leave a comment to get yours.

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Battlestar Galactica: The Plan Answers Few Questions

gjunkie — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:31:23 +0000

BSG: The Plan revolves around Brother Cavil and his experiences prior to the attacks and months after. Most of the film is focused on recapping what has already happened by showing you short scenes from key episodes, and then following the scene through to reveal something that we hadn’t seen before. The film is filled with “oh!” moments, but those “oh!” moments were for questions of the smallest magnitude that no one ever bothered to ask about.

Case in point, Sharon Valeri in season one seems to be hypnotized from time to time and keeps doing very Cylon-esque things. In The Plan we find out how and why… but who cares?

Edward James Olmos was quoted saying that once you watch The Plan you’ll want to go back and watch the entire series again with a whole new perspective. This is not the case. The only perspective it provides is the same scenes over and over again from a different point of view. Doral blowing himself up, the farm Starbuck was held in, etc.

At one point they almost had something going though. I wish they would have gone through with it. They suggested that some of these “sleeper agents” could be heroes in disguise who truly want to be human, hence Sharon Valeri failing to kill Adama… was it on purpose? It was an interesting question that sadly went nowhere.

I guess the really disappointing thing is that Battlestar Galactica was absolutely awesome. The questions they raised, the conflicts they presented, and the way plots evolved was nothing less than gorgeous. But in the end the show closes with many questions left unanswered leaving us shouting for more. And this is what they give us? it hurts me to no end giving BSG a bad review, trust me, I’m a die hard fan. But the lack of creativity in this final chapter of this long story is sad. In the end they do tell us what “The Plan” was, but as I’ve read in other reviews it is very anti-climactic.

What did you think about it?

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Poll: What Is The Scariest Film Of All Time?

gjunkie — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:55:09 +0000

There’s no way that one poll can cover such an amazing genre, but here are some of the best and most influential films in horror. The poll will close after Halloween night. Hurry up and vote!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Related Posts

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Airfoil: Send Your Macs Audio To Other Computers

gjunkie — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:55:16 +0000

My problem started when I moved and changed my whole set up. I used to have my TV speakers linked up directly to my computer due to their proximity. After my move, however, I was forced to make my speakers TV-only. My Mac Pro was left speaker-less. I plugged in my MacBook to the speakers’ receiver, and since iTunes 9 I have been able to stream all of my music and videos directly to the TV and those nice speakers. However, I have very particular iTunes habits. I rely on smart playlists which most rely on their play count and play date. As nice as iTunes Home Sharing is, it doesn’t affect my music’s metadata, hence rendering my playlists useless.

Enter Airfoil. This application is amazing. The application is a two-parter. There’s Airfoil and Airfoil Speakers. Copy Airfoil Speakers to any Mac in your network, and Airfoil will see it as remote speakers. You can send audio to that other Mac from virtually any application; iTunes, Safari, QuickTime, RealPlayer, you name it.

It also has many little features that make your life a lot easier. By default Airfoil lets you control the volume level of each audio destination, which is awesome. But you can also link up the audio to your main system’s audio so that you can control the audio with your keyboard, rather than having to go back to Airfoil every time to adjust the volume.

The application costs just $25, but if you need something like this, that’s nothing. Make sure to give it a try. The demo version will stream audio for 10 minutes. Airfoil is available for both Mac and Windows.

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Battlestar Babes On Maxim Magazine

gjunkie — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 05:25:30 +0000

Tricia Helfer and Grace Park have teamed up and graced us with some amazing pictures. All you Battlestar fans out there I’m sure will love this set. Here’s a little preview of their shoot with Maxim Magazine:

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FlashForward Going Too Fast For Its Own Good

gjunkie — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:09:17 +0000

FlashForward is quickly becoming a soup of random clues that are delivered too quickly for any of us to process. Shows like Lost (which this show is trying to be), at least for the first season, took things a bit slower and let us bask in the mystery for a while. Now I understand the predicament of potentially falling the habit of asking too many questions and not answering them (ahem… X FILES! LOST!), but if you give me a clue, give it at least a little time before you answer the question.

Half way through the last episode I thought, “maybe I’m really not that into this show.” I always get the feeling that it takes itself too seriously. Alias, for example, wasn’t a flawless show, but I still watched it because it was enjoyable and it didn’t promise to be something amazing. It didn’t take itself too seriously. FlashForward thinks it’s something profound. Right now it doesn’t know what it wants to be, semi-good show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, or a solid show that does. You can’t have both.

The show is assuming that its viewers are idiots reminding them of every flash forward every character saw every 4 minutes or so. Yes, I know that Agent Mark Benford saw himself in an office with lots of pictures and men were coming to kill him. You remind me about 6 times per episode. Can we move on?

I don’t know… I just don’t know. Also, the ratings have been tanking, and for good reason. I don’t think this show will last for very much longer.

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Using Social Networking To Cut Down On Phone Usage

gjunkie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:01:09 +0000

Last month I set out on an experiment to cut down on my text messages to see if I could go from paying $15 to $5 a month. In order to do that with my iPhone, I would have to go from my average of 700 SMS per month to 200 or less. This is much harder than it sounds.

I looked at my last month’s usage and I was able to go down to 545 SMS (sent + received). From there I set my next goal to be under 300. This current billing period, which ends on the 22nd, I have used 176. So I have a 3 weeks for no more than 124 SMS which will be hard. Still, this is a significant improvement on the previous month in which I was already at about 300+ at this point.

How am I doing it? Social Networking. As it is I only use about 45 minutes of talk time for a whole month. Most of my communication is done via Facebook, Twitter, AIM, and (soon) Skype. Most of my friends are on at least one of the mentioned social networks. The only reason I haven’t been able to completely eliminate SMS is because most of these social networks don’t support Push Notifications on the iPhone and I’m unable to completely rely on them.

As you may already know, AT&T recently announced that they’ll allow apps on the iPhone to use voice over IP on the 3G network. What does this translate to? Use Skype (or other apps) to make your calls from anywhere, without using your minutes. The only thing that will keep me from using it all the time is the fact that Skype does not yet support Push Notifications. Imagine getting a notification for a call and it’s from Skype. You can talk all day long and it doesn’t affect your minutes at all.

In fact, since I’m only using about 45 minutes of talk time, why would I even need a voice or SMS plan? all I need is the data plan. In fact phone companies may begin to move towards a data plan model rather than minutes-per-month/SMS model.

The hard part about trying out this experiment is getting all your friends and family to contact you using these Social Networks. If all else fails I usually recommend emailing me, since I’ve always got my iPhone on me it’s as good as SMS.

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