Andrew Maxwell » Design

Viewing Museums from the Comfort of your Home – Google Bringing Museums to Us

Andrew — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:02:02 +0000

Today is a big step forward for art lovers around the world.

Google as teamed up with some of the most famous art museums around the world and has combined Google Street View with a 7-gigapixel camera to give every person around the world the possibility to view these museums and their works of art.

Google’s Art Project is yet another part of Google ambitious goal to organise the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

A Behind the Scenes Look at the Google Art Project:

Museums that are Currently Part of Google Art Project:

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin – Germany
Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC – USA
The Frick Collection, NYC – USA
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin – Germany
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC – USA
MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC – USA
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid – Spain
Museo Thyssen – Bornemisza, Madrid – Spain
Museum Kampa, Prague – Czech Republic
National Gallery, London – UK
Palace of Versailles – France
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands
The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg – Russia
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow – Russia
Tate Britain, London – UK
Uffizi Gallery, Florence – Italy
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam – The Netherland

This amazing new site definitely makes it possible for people who are less fortunate and can not travel to be able to see some of their favorite pieces of art in their natural habitat.

Check out Google Art Project today!

What is your favorite painting? Share the link in the comments.

My First HTML5 Labs Test

Andrew — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:24:39 +0000

A few months ago I wanted to teach myself HTML5 so recently I decided to take a poster and recreate it online using only HTML5 elements.

HTML 5 Elements that I Used:

Images using SVG items rather than a .jpg or .png

The Poster that I Replicated:

You can see the this test at http://labs.andrewcmaxwell.com/wall-e/

Be sure to Zoom in to the image to really see the SVG graphics at work.

This labs test is best when viewed using Google Chrome.

YouTube Idea: Fitted Video Player

Andrew — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:00:07 +0000

Camera phones are now able to record in HD video, and more people are recording content and uploading it you youtube everyday. This is great for watching more videos, but this brings up a new issue.

Some videos are in landscape mode which looks great on websites, but now some videos are also taken in portrait mode, leaving huge black bars on either side.

Check out the embedded video below, showing the black bars.

It would be great if YouTube gave us the option to removed these black borders from videos. Removing the black bars would make it possible for all video dimensions, both horizontal and vertical, to be displayed cleanly on websites.

Do you take any videos with your phone? What do you think, do the black bars bother you?

Added Better Page Navigation

Andrew — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:24:24 +0000

Continuing with the goal of making my personal website easier to use, I have changed my page navigation from “Previous Post” and “Next Post” to displaying page numbers. Now you can actually know what page you are on and how many pages of content is left.

Be sure to check out my site often as there are still many more features that I will be adding, in order to make this a better website.

Why Google TV Will Help Websites For People With Disabilities

Andrew — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:00:47 +0000

One of the things that I’m passionate about is trying to make websites for everyone. Not just the majority of us that can see, hear, and touch just fine, but also for people who have trouble doing the activities that we take for granted.

I just read Google’s blog posts “Optimize a site for Google TV” and it hit me. Not only is Google making it possible for people to view websites on a larger screen with more accurate sound systems (which is better for both people with vision and hearing problems) but they are also making it more important to use the directional pad(d-pad/arrow keys) when navigating a website (which is better for people who have trouble typing or moving a mouse).

Of course other companies such as Microsoft and webTV have had home theater pc’s for years and make it possible to view websites using your TV, but no one has really pushed for websites to be optimized for better viewing and navigation, until now.

With Microsoft and WebTV they were software companies looking to make it possible for you to view web content using your TV, with Google they are a web company looking at making the web accessible and viewable everywhere. This small difference is what I think will make the web a better place for everyone.

Most websites on the web are not accessible in one form or another, but bringing the web to the living room and encouraging developers to use the directional keys for navigating and larger text and layouts for viewing, will make it possible for people with disabilities to finally enjoy the web like everyone else.

As Google creates software upgrades and advancements to Google TV, I will be writing articles to cover what features they have added which makes viewing content more accessible.

Do you think Google TV will help the web or do you think that it will add yet another complex area for developers?

If you are a developer and are interested in checking out Google’s guide to Optimizing a website for Google TV then check out the developers website at http://code.google.com/tv/web/

Google Chrome Cleans Up Their UI Even More

Andrew — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:30:33 +0000

This feature came out a while ago but I wanted to make sure that others knew about it, Google Chrome has combined their two drop downs into 1(one), giving users even more room on their browsers window for extensions and the omnibox (search box).

This is pretty impressive because even though Google Chrome combined two full menus into one, it is easy to navigate through and manage. Check out the screen shots below. The icons I am referring to are the small paper and wrench icons located on the top right of the browser.

New Feature: Connect Buzz Comments

Andrew — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:45:13 +0000

I get a lot of feedback from my blog posts, most of it doesn’t come from this website, but rather from Google Buzz.

A good friend of mine on Google Buzz recommended that I add the Buzz comments plug-in to my website. Well I am happy to say that I have added the plug-in and all comments posted on Buzz related to a blog post will now show up on the website as well as on Buzz.

Let me know what you think about this feature and what you think would make you want to interact and comment more.

Bend The New Text Editor From Microsoft

Andrew — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:31:04 +0000

Microsoft recently created a new text editor called Bend. This may sound of little importance but take a look at some of these screen shots, the thing looks pretty slick, especially coming from Microsoft. This text editor looks different than other editors with its minimal design and better font rendering. I personally don’t know if I would give up NotePad++ for Bend, but if they added plug-ins for HTML and other languages that I code with I would give it a longer trial.

Give bend a test drive and let me know what you think.

Hippo Remote Profile – Totem Movie Player

Andrew — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:53:57 +0000

A few weeks ago I built a media center PC using Ubuntu 10.04, an old PC and some free open source software. I was able to turn the old pc into a powerful media center without spending a cent. Now that I have used the media center for a while I started to look for new ways to make it useful while trying to spend the least amount of money possible.

One of the first things that I wanted was a remote control. I wanted a remote that would allow me to control Boxee and maybe even the operating system if possible. I did a little research and came across HippoRemote an app that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless remote using wifi. They have two versions available, a Pro version for $4.99 and an ad supported version for free.

HippoRemote comes with many remote profiles for popular software, like Boxee, Ubuntu, Windows 7, Mac OS X, Google Chrome, and Windows Media Player classic. This was great because it allowed me to control Boxee and Ubuntu straight out of the box.

For my media center I use Boxee for my day to day viewing of movies, tv shows and video podcasts. Every once in a while I want to watch a video while coding or surfing the web, and for this I used Ubuntu’s built in movie player called Totem Movie Player.

I looked through all of the profiles that HippoRemote offered and they didn’t have anything for Totem Movie Player. At first I was a little bummed, but then I saw a feature on HippoRemote that made me smile. It was the words “Upload a Profile”. So I went to HippoRemote’s website and found the basic tutorial to create my own profile.

2 hours later after some reading, planning, designing and coding I have created my first HippoRemote Profile. My first profile is for the Totem Movie Player. This profile isn’t 100% finished but I will be continuing to refine the layout and design as time goes on. Even though it is not perfect I wanted others to be able to use it to control their copy of Totem Movie Player.

Download the source code - Totem Media Player – v1.0

Download the profile to your phone – Totem Media Player – v1.0

Note: You can download this profile to your phone easily by viewing this page on your iPhone and clicking on the link.

Open Sourced – I have shared my source code and design files so that you can take a look and see what I have done and maybe be inspired to create your own profile. If you have any questions please feel free to comment or send me a message on Buzz or Twitter.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

New Buzz Post Static Link

Andrew — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:24:18 +0000

One of the goals for the new blog design and layout was to bridge the gap between Google Buzz and this blog.

The Problem – My blog posts and Buzz comments lived on two different worlds:

I found it messy that I would get great comments in Google Buzz that users wouldn’t get while reading on my blog.

Example:

I create and publish a blog post, http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/06/updating-my-blog-with-a-new-design-and-features/
Once this blog post has been published it will automatically feed into Google Buzz – creating this URL http://www.google.com/buzz/amaxwell01/QEhMD2HHfV9/

At first this was great because I got more comments on each blog post thanks to Google Buzz, but after a while I wanted a way for readers on my blog to see what people were saying in Google Buzz about the topic.

The Solution (Part 1):

At the bottom of each blog post you will now see a new link and icon that says “Buzz Post”. This links to the static Buzz post that gets created as soon as I publish the article on my blog.

Let me know what you think, and be on the look out for the Solution – Part 2 coming soon.