I Like Painting Watercolours and I Can Not Lie » website

New Page: Mac Software Suggestions

Pete Hindle — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:02:31 +0000

I get a lot of people asking me about Mac Software, so I’ve put up a web page where I can list my recommendations. Find it on the top of this webpage, or click here to see it.

If you have suggestions, or you think I’ve missed something out, let me know. You can either leave a comment or use the Contact page.

MMX – The Start of the Post-Digital Decade

Pete Hindle — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:24:25 +0000

2010 and after are going to be about post-digital, by which I mean what comes after we’ve finished staring at our screens. We’re going to see an explosion in the amount of physical objects that would have been impossible without using digital process in the workflow, and objects that won’t work without a connection of some kind to the internet.

Spimes and RFID are only part of what I’m talking about here. Short-run publications, bespoke objects, and even distributed craft networks are also part of this new post-digital boom. There are going to be a lot of interesting tools for artists and designers to explore in the next decade, as we move away from computers being the site of the art (on websites) to being tools that enable interesting things to happen.

With this in mind, I’ve got three predicition for what the post-digital will be about:

It’s about fitting the digital into your workflow
It’s not venerating the things that are on our screens
It’s real-world hard work, and engaging with both hands

With this in mind, I looked back at my last decade and I thought about how my use of computers changed over that time. Do you remember using computers in 2000? I had to wrack my brains a bit, but here’s a personal timeline of digital use:

2000 – Started Foundation course. Used Kai’s Power Tools for the first time, made first video, got first real email address (by which I mean not a hotmail account)

2001 – First year of university. My first computer that was mine- a G3 desktop, zipdisks.

2002 - New computer – G4 eMac with OSX! Lots of browsing at uni, then taking software updates home on disks. Became expert on TWAIN, scanning, photoshop, and waiting for photoshop scanning to finish.

2003 – First external hard drive. Also brought Wacom tablet, midi keyboard (both mostly useless). Made videos, learnt non-linear editing software, wrote dissertation, stared out of the window a lot.

2004 - First broadband connection. Brought Max/MSP, downloaded Processing (alpha!), went on PD course. Still confused by all three ‘easy’ languages. Got Gmail account and my first laptop – a G4 powerbook.

2005 – Overused first broadband connection. Made some digital installations, brought Teleo card, got into electronics, nearly blew Teleo card up. Brought first iPod and Arduino.

2006 - Social networking via Flickr. Went on Arduino course in Barcelona with Massimo and David, gave up on Max/MSP and PD as patcher languages suck time, fun, and light from life.

2007 - Joined Twitter and Facebook. Facebook annoying from start. Finally buy proper domain name and start running my own website. Run the Glowbikes project, using SpokePOV’s as part of an art installation.

2008 – Powerbook dies, replaced with MacBook. Attended geek conferences, wrote and taught two courses for wordpress, made serious effort to learn Processing (which is then forgotten) and brought iPhone.

2009 – Discovered international roaming charges. Erk. eBay’d and sold things on Amazon, wrote thematic blog posts, and interviewed serious hacker-types.

2010 - Now.

Researching Tumblr

Pete Hindle — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:11:41 +0000

I’d have to say that Tumblr’s great if you want to look at pictures of bookshelves or semi-naked women. It really fails at presenting anything more complex though.

100th Post!

Pete Hindle — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:56:49 +0000

This is my one hundredth post. I’d like to say that I’ve got something either deep or meaningful to say, but I’ve just been staring at the blank pages of a word processor today for so long that I’m without anything interesting to share.

Back to Work

Pete Hindle — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:15:02 +0000

The past few weeks have been an excruciating battle against my attention span, as I have attempted to hand in several really important pieces of work for my university course.

However, with that hand in comes the period where I can actually readjust and get back to work. And I kind of think that there is a lot of work that can be done now.

Firstly, the main core of my work this year – my university project that will feed into and fuel the Unnamed Laboratory project. Over the next few days I’m supposed to be doing a lot of reading, related to a definition of New Media, and then after that I’m heading off to Berlin for a period of research.

This is all very exciting, but the Unnamed Laboratory project is something that’s going to take longer than just a few months at a university. And that means that I’ll be sorting out this website to make sure the aims of the project can be represented in the best way.

I’m also pleased to announce that I’ve been joined in the project by Brian Degger, who is a long-term collaborator. While the description of the project is still a bit nebulous, we’ll be drafting a document to explain what’s going on, the work we’ve already undertaken, and what we plan to do next.

Unnamed Signage

Pete Hindle — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:05:10 +0000

I’ve just finished writing a small program that generates our website banner. I’m not a great programmer, by any means, but I’m pretty proud of this program. It’s been a long evening where I could have blamed my lack of programming skills on a stinking cold and slouched off to bed at any point, but by creating a program to make the above banner I think hope I’ve saved work later on.

For now, you can refresh to see the subtle yet intricate changes, or download the program yourself to dissect how it works.

unnamed_signage (Processing Sketch)

Gone Away

Pete Hindle — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 13:06:54 +0000

There’s been a lovely drop in audience figures for my blog since installing a truly hostile end-user environment.

Things Look Different

Pete Hindle — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:49:16 +0000

If you are an RSS reader of this blog, you’ll not have noticed that I’ve made the site look different. Go take a look.

Cool, huh?

I’m going to keep my site this way for a while, as I feel that it’s a bit of a baffle that stops the less-nerdy and those people who casually browse my site keeping an eye on me (but actually hate me).