Over the past year, I’ve totally changed my way of using a computer, and the change fits in the overall change we have seen over the past couple of years. I’m talking about cloud- based computing.

For those who don’t know what cloud computing is, I’ll try to explain it quickly. Usually a computers content is made of applications and files. And usually the applications are made to create, edit or view those files. Take for instance a word document. You probably use Microsoft Word to create, edit or view the .doc file. Same for music for instance. You probably use iTunes to download and listen to music. But the important thing is that all these documents and music, all your files, are stored on the hard drive of your computer. This is the fundamental difference with cloud computing. Cloud computing lets you move all your files on the internet, and you usually use websites to access and modify those files, instead of applications. There are several upsides and downsides to cloud computing, but now that internet has become so fast and is nearly available everywhere, the shift to the cloud is beginning.

In this blogpost I am going to share with you how i use my computer (that is, if i can still use the word computer – derived from the latin computare which means “to calculate” – because I don’t use my computer for calculating anymore, I use it as a window to the cloud). I, like everyone else, used to store everything on my hard drive, and no I barely have a few important ones left on it. All my documents, media, movies, music, pictures are all stored online. I’ll write a paragraph for every kind of files/usage and the website i use to handle them.

Documents – Google Docs

Google Docs lets you store and edit your documents, all from within you web browser (just like most of the services i’ll describe). The features are similar to Microsoft’s Office suite, and works as advertised. It even adds features like the ability to work with several people on the same document, chat with them when doing so, and even go back to a previous state of the document. The big advantage is that everything is automatically saved, and that all your documents are available any computer anywhere in the world where you have access to the internet.

Emails – Gmail

Gmail is probably the most used cloud based service, and i don’t think it needs any explanation. This was the first move to the cloud, and began about 5 years ago. We used to store emails on our computer with applications like Outlook, now most emailing is done from the web.

Movies – Put.io

And now the least known website. This service is more of a download service. You can submit any download link, and it will be downloaded and added to your storage space. The great feature is that it will also accept bittorrent links, and download the torrent for you at an incredible speed (think downloading a movie in a couple of minutes). On top of that, you can also download from Rapidshare, Megavideo, etc. without having to do more than copy-paste the link, and at very high speeds. Once files are added to your account, you can stream them directly to your computer. This works with movies and music, including divx files! Oh and if you own an iPhone or an iPad, with one click you can convert any video file to stream it to your device. For people watching a lot of movies like me, this is a wonderful service.

Music – Spotify

Spotify is a music streaming application. With several million music tracks on their servers, you just have to search for the music you want to listen, click play and enjoy! Music is streamed to your computer, and it is totally legal! For 10€ a month, you have unlimited access to their music catalogue, and may even download it on your computer for offline listening. Spotify is only available in select countries, but if you pay the 10€ subscription you can use it everywhere in the world. They also have a good iPhone application, and their computer application is very easy to use, while looking a bit like iTunes.

Pictures – Flickr

Flickr is the best pictures sharing website around, and has a huge community. I started uploading my pictures not too long ago, but i am very happy with the result. It lets me very easily share pictures with family and friends. Many would use facebook for that, but i don’t like facebook a lot, and their picture quality is sub-par. For serious use you have to buy the pro subscription, but it isn’t overpriced at a couple of dollars a month.

Drawing and painting – Aviary suite

This is a service i don’t use, but people might be interested to know it exists. The Aviary suite is a bit like the Adobe CS suite but online. Unfortunately I am used to the Adobe suite, and i think that for heavy creation and editing, a website isn’t going to cut it, at least not right now.

Contacts and Calendar – MobileMe

MobileMe is Apple’s view of cloud computing. I use it for two purposes: contacts and my calendar. Because MobileMe integrates with my Mac, iPhone and iPad, all my contacts are available in all my devices at any time. If I add a contact on my iPhone, it will be synced with the cloud, and added on my Mac and my iPad. And the times where when you lost your phone, you lost all your contact are now gone, with your contacts available in several places. For my calendar it’s the same. It updates on all devices when i make changes. And of course, all information is available from within a web browser, on any computer.

Games – Quake Live

I am not a big fan of games, and usually don’t play them. But one game caught my attention, because I believe we will see a lot like them in a near future. I’m talking about Quake Live, a 3D FPS that is played right from your browser. To start playing, you just have to go visit a website (quakelive.com) and you are ready to go! Oh and it is free!
If you want to play more casually, there are hundreds of thousands of Flash games online!

Other

So what haven’t I moved to the cloud? Not a lot, but several things I do haven’t left my computer yet. As mentioned before, graphic work is still performed on my laptop, which includes pictures post-processing in Aperture, bitmap design in Photoshop, vectorial design in Illustrator and print material in InDesign. These tools have no cloud-equivalent for me.
And the second important activity I still do on my computer is development. I haven’t found a suitable IDE i can use online, and even if cloud web development should be possible, and even very useful (who as a web developer hasn’t dreamt of having their programming environment anywhere on any computer?).

So is it worth moving to the cloud? For me it is, but mostly because i use a lot of devices (i.e.: my Mac, my iPad, the college computers, …), and I like having all my data everywhere without having to worry about carrying a hard drive around. Now something you probably should take into consideration is the cost. Most of the services i wrote about aren’t free, and come in the form of a subscription. Luckily the prices aren’t too hight, and leaving a service you don’t use anymore is very easy. And to truly live in the Cloud, investing in a 3G mobile internet connectivity is a good idea, because if you can’t access the data from where you are when you need it, well the data is useless.

When I booked my trip to New York a few months ago, I made sure to take flights AF006 and AF007 (both from Air France between Paris and New York JFK). Why these particular flights? Well those are the ones operated by the newest long-haul aircraft around, namely the Airbus A380-800. This is the first one in service in Europe, and because I’m studying for Aerospace Engineering, you could believe I was very excited to step into this mythical plane. For those who aren’t aircraft-geeks, I’ll briefly explain why the A380 so special.

First of all, this plane is the first full double-deck passenger airplane. Forget the Boeing 747 with it’s awkward bulb, the A380 is much prettier and streamlined. In the Air France configuration, it can transport 538 passengers at more than 900km/h over a distance of 15200km. In other configurations, it can accommodate up to 800 passengers!

This wasn’t the first time I saw the plane. The first time I saw it fly was at one of it’s first public appearance in 2005. This was at the Salon Internationnal du Bourget – Paris Air Show, which is the most important Aerospace trade fair worldwide. I then saw it in 2007 and 2009, again at the Bourget.

So how was my trip to New York? Well on the Paris-NYC flight, the A380 was replaced with a Boeing 777 because the A380 had technical difficulties the day before. So I just flew in a regular plane, and I was disappointed as you could imagine. This wasn’t the first time the plane had to stay grounded for 24 hours. Since November, incidents occurred 4 times, and even once required the plane to return to JFK nearly half-way to Paris! So a difficult start for Air France and their shiny new plane…

But on the return flight I got to fly with it. And one word: incredible! Even though there was a delay of nearly two hours, the flight was perfect. The one thing that strikes while flying is the sound, or the lack thereof. This is a quiet plane. And when I say quiet, I mean it. No awful loud buzzing sound of the engines and the vibrations of the structure. Gone. Of course you will still hear you’re in an aircraft, but for someone who has never slept in a plane more than 20 minutes at once, today I got a solid 3 hour long sleep period without interruption. Just this is an exceptional achievement for passenger comfort. And I believe it is what we are going to see in the future newly designed aircraft like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner or the Airbus A350 XWB. These three planes will be the first comfortable planes regarding noise pollution.

I managed to get perfect seats. I was on the upper deck, at an emergency exit and at the window. First I chose the upper deck for a better vantage point, but this turned out to a better choice than I could have hoped for. The upper deck is Business Class for 2/3rds of the length, and 1/3rd is left for Economy Class. This means the amount of people seated on the upper deck is far less than on the lower one. And because the boarding happens at two separate gates (one for the upper and one for the lower deck), you get seated way quicker! But this isn’t all: because of the fact the fuselage is a tube, there’re less seats on a row than below. Only 8 seats can be fitted in a row, compared to 10 on the lower level. All in all, this gives a feel of intimacy to the upper Economy Class, and is very enjoyable!

Being seated at the emergency exits has the great benefit of having a lot of leg space, which is great for me as I am quite tall. Oh and a note on the windows in the A380. They are clearly larger than on regular aircraft! And from the upper deck, you already feel like flying as you are seated so high.

There is a great deal of writing done about the “bars” in the A380. The bars you see in the pictures are not for the Economy Class passengers. There are “bars” for Economy passengers. I quote “bars” because they are more like tables with a selection of drinks you can take from. The drinks available that way are all non-alcoholic, for alcoholic beverages you just have to ask the steward(ess). About that, legal drinking age is 21 in the US. Does that still apply in the aircraft? I think I read that the aircraft is soil of the country it left from until it touches down in an other one. If anyone could confirm/deny it would be great!

The on-board entertainment system is something I haven’t extensively tested, because it crashed twice for me (once after going in the satellite view of the position, and a second time by retrying it, so definitely something wrong there!). Oh and the crash is a nasty one, I couldn’t use the screen for several hours. However, if you don’t try to go twice in a menu that crashes, it works pretty well, with about 100 movies available on demand, lots of CD albums to listen to, and pretty awesome camera views (cameras are placed in the nose of the plane, the top of the tail and beneath the plane, all are accessible from the entertainment system). I was disappointed with the poor quality of the screen. It didn’t even seem to be an LCD screen. Contrast was terribly bad, and the image was very grainy. On the lowest brightness setting, the colors were still washed out, blacks looking more like medium grays. I must have played only 20 minutes with the entertainment system because I got to sleep for once!

I just want to end with a word that even though is not related to the Airbus A380, I feel I have to mention. I want to thank the Air France on-board personnel for their kindness, and the 30 minute long talk we had in the middle of the night in one of the “bars” about traveling. This was pretty awesome, so I just wanted to mention it!

So here you go, sort of a review of an aircraft, the most impressive one I flew with in my life (damn why am I not older and didn’t I fly Concorde!). And next time you reader go to New York, book flights AF006 and AF007, they are worth it, even if you have to pay a little more (but not a whole lot more, I got my return ticket for under €400)

Many popular cameras don’t have their RAW files supported by Apple’s iPhoto and Aperture photo editing software. The iPhoto & Aperture RAW converter lets you use those unsupported RAW files very easily! You only have to drag and drop the RAW files on the application, and they will instantly be converted!

What can I do once my RAW files are converted?

• See the picture thumbnails in the Finder
• View the pictures using QuickLook
• View the pictures using Preview
• Import the pictures in iPhoto
• Import the pictures in Aperture

Supported cameras:

• Panasonic | Lumix GF1
• Olympus | Pen E-P1
• Olympus | Pen E-P2
• Olympus | E-450
• Olympus | E-620
• Sony | Alpha A230
• Sony | Alpha A330
• Sony | Alpha A380
• Sony | Alpha A850

Please visit http://aperture-converter.com to get the app!

A few posters I came across today while browsing the internet. All in the same style, but by two different artists: Justin Van Genderen for the Star Wars posters, and Ibhraheem Youssef for the Quentin Tarantino ones.

One thing: are pastel colors back in?

[Source] [Source]

Lots of people are not that happy with what Apple showed us on the 27th of January. The media usually gave the iPad a bad opinion, stating there are a few key elements missing. I’m someone who owns several Apple products, and I enjoy them a lot. I’m just going to answer some criticism people and media have against the device I believe is not really right.

I followed Steve Jobs’ keynote together with about one hundred people at the Café Numérique in Brussels, which is a weekly event about technology, and which coincidentally was scheduled at the same time the keynote was given. The topic of the event was of course changed to Apple and following the iPad keynote. There were some interesting reactions form the people present I’d like to share.

At the first sight of the iPad, the first thing I and a lot of people thought was: wow, the screen borders are large! Now think about it. This is Apple we are talking about. Technically making a much thinner border is absolutely feasible, look at an iPhone. The screen has only a very thin black border. So there must be a reason behind this choice. If you haven’t found the reason yet, I’ll give you the answer at the end of the blogpost. If you found the reason, I think you’ll be quite happy to have that black border.

From the first pictures of the device, many said it was ugly. Even though beauty is a concept that varies from person to person, I have to say I find this a beautiful device! And I’m sure I’ll like it even more once I see it in real. The aluminium back is gorgeous, and the iPad is really thin compared to all the other Tablet PC or Android Tablets hanging around.

Let’s talk a bit about the technical specifications. The first striking element in the hardware configuration is the processor chip. It’s an Apple A4 chip. Apple is now officially a computer chip maker, just like Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Marvell and more. This is the result of buying the PA Semi chip maker two years ago. This is interesting because these Apple chips won’t be sold to other companies, and thus can be custom made for a particular device. It’s said the Apple A4 chip is based on an ARM Cortex-A9 design. This is the last generation, available in no other device at the time of writing.

The iPad’s screen is a IPS screen. Well what does this mean? Look at your computer screen. Now look at it from above. Now look at it from below. And on the sides. You’ll see that the screen changes of color depending from where you look at it. This is typical from a TN screen. With a IPS screen, you won’t see these color shifts, from whatever angle you are looking at it. On top of this feature, it is a lot more color-accurate than your TN screen. That’s why it is mostly used by graphists and photographers, who need to see the true colors on their screen. I’m positive this is the best screen you can find on an handheld device.

What about connectivity? WiFi, nothing to say about it, they included the latest iteration (WiFi N). The 3G connectivity is a great option, at a reasonable price (if you want 3G on a netbook, except to pay approximately the same amount – 130$). Luckily it’s an option, I don’t need it for instance, but I can imagine people wanting a 3G connectivity. GPS is only included in the 3G version unfortunately. Now what about the connectors? There’s only the proprietary 30 pin Apple connector. So no USB, no SD card slot. It’s not a lot. But when you consider that the iPad doesn’t have a Finder (file explorer), what could you do with a USB port? The USB stick you’d plug in would be useless. There are two accessories however that will let you plug in a SD card or your camera, and import it on your iPad. Bluetooth will allow you to connect any bluetooth keyboard, making the iPad great for text-input, especially if you choose to buy the iWork suite.

The user interface and operating system is an evolution of the iPhone OS. This means that if you’ve used an iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll be familiar to the device. However, given the added screen space, navigation seems a lot easier. And little details are everywhere, in an Apple tradition. After watching videos of the device in use, those little details make it very enjoyable. It’s not a desktop OS, meaning it’s not like Windows or Mac OSX. You won’t have a file explorer, there is no multitasking, no backgrounding. If you can’t live without it, I’d recommend you not to purchase an iPad. However, if you find that you want a device primarily for consuming media, and the occasional creating, this is a perfect fit. What I mean by consuming media, is everything that doesn’t involve creating. For instance: watching movies, browsing the web, listening to music, reading books, checking a presentation before presenting it. Creating is more like writing a document, replying to an email, creating a blogpost, etc. I’d like to share a quote from Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who made a great analogy with the car world:

Car enthusiasts (and genuine experts like race car drivers) still drive cars with manual transmissions. They offer more control; they’re more efficient. But the vast majority of cars sold today are automatics. So too it’ll be with computers. Eventually, the vast majority will be like the iPad in terms of the degree to which the underlying computer is abstracted away. Manual computers, like the Mac and Windows PCs, will slowly shift from the standard to the niche, something of interest only to experts and enthusiasts and developers.

I’m impatiently waiting to see how the developers make use of the larger screen estate. I think we’ll see a lot of apps mixing desktop app features with the ease of use of an iPhone app. Just look at the iTunes application. It looks a lot like the Mac/PC version of iTunes, but with less options and clutter.

iWork looks very nice, but I can’t tell about how useful this is going to be until I get my hands on the app, and test it.

So, am I going to buy an iPad? Short answer: yes. Which version? The cheapest one, without 3G. I think that the iPad is worth $499 or $629 (3G included), but that the models with more memory are not worth the price which goes up to $829.

I’m also curious if it’s a great device for students taking notes. I think it really is, but I’ll test that later on when I have the iPad!

For the people still wondering why there is a large border around the screen, don’t forget it’s a touchscreen, and if you hold it, part of your hand will be touching the front of the device. If the border would be absent you’d be doing “clicks” with your palms or thumbs each time you hold the iPad.

This Friday I paid a visit to the European Motor Show in Brussels. The last time I went there was 6 years ago I think, so I was eager to see how the motoring industry changed in the past years.

I went with a friend who is a car enthusiast, to say the least. After scouting a bit through a few of the 12 halls the show counted, we met with a few twitter followers, and continued the tour together. I’d like to thank @marievh, @woookash, @catalyste and my friend @knapneder for the great time I had there. It was the first time I really met people I follow on twitter, and it was a great experience! This is definitely something I’m going to do more often!

So we continued visiting the motor show together, some looking for a new car, others just interested in having a look at what the motoring industry offers nowadays. This is where I’m disappointed. I expected a lot more novelty, on what is supposed to be a show where new cars are launched on the Belgian market. Instead I saw it more like a place you could make deals on price cars. A bit like a huge multi-car-makers dealer. Most of the cars shown were already available for quite some time, cars you see everyday passing by. And when it comes to “new” cars, cars not yet sold in Belgium, I was disappointed by the lack of innovation. Most of them look, how to say, boring. I’m going to make a blunt comparison here: I feel it’s a bit like the computers market, but without Apple. Meaning I see lots of different car makers, but none taking a leap forward, innovating. So the “new” car is just like a “new” PC, shiny, but boring. I feel like there is a place for a radical design change in the car industry, but just like PC makers, no one is taking the risk.

I’m ending this comparison here, but there are a few other things I’d like to point out I think are not good in the motoring industry. First of all, the price of the options of a car. The difference between the base-model car and the normally equipped version of the same car is huge! You often pay 40% of the base model price in options. And we are not talking about the fully equipped versions here! This is just insane.

Now about the concept-cars shown by the largest car makers. I see a trend here: all the concept cars were very luminous, meaning the roof is totally made of glass, the side windows span from the front to the back without interruption, and so on. I like the concept, but I fear this is again a concept-car fantasy. A full glass roof isn’t going to meet the safety regulations here in Europe, meaning the car-makers are going to have to reinforce the structure, and basically we’ll get to the same cars we have today. And by the way, have you ever seen a cool concept-car being sold nearly visually identical? Production cars need the safety, and that’s why they are more reinforced, and more “regular”.

Now a last point I’d like to write about: embedded technology in average cars. Well to summarize it: it’s nonexistent. Cars in the 10000 € to 20000 € range seldom have an integrated GPS system. And that’s not the worst. I’ve seen cars without MP3 playing features, or an iPod dock. Even a 3.5mm jack would be a good option, and even that is nowhere to be seen! And don’t tell me these things cost a lot, it’s just not true. Oh yeah, sometimes you have the option to include a GPS or an iPod/MP3 player dock/port. But wait, have you seen the price? Aha, that’s usually the price of a netbook. These options shouldn’t be, they should be included in standard. This is just a matter of courtesy towards the buyer, which car makers seem to lack a lot.

So, to summarize: I really liked going back to the show after all those years, and even with all the critiques I have vis-à-vis the car constructors, I had a great time, especially meeting a few twitter followers. And even if I think a lot has to change, I’m confident it’s going to happen in a near future!

The Smashing Book is the book published by the people behind the Smashing Magazine (smashingmagazine.com). The Smashing Magazine is a webmagazine about advanced webdesign, beautiful websites and pictures, digital art, technical papers about webdesign practices and optimizations and a lot more. It’s a great place to look for inspiration for your new website.

At the end of 2009 they launched their book, which summarizes the best practices in webdesign in a clear and concise way. It’s a very useful handbook for webdesigners. I’ve read through the 313 pages the book is made of, and even though I didn’t learn a lot of new stuff, it’s still a good reminder of all techniques you can use to achieve certain effects. The chapter about typography was very enriching, and that’s the part I’ve learned the most about.

At 23,90 € it’s a great value, especially compared to some publications you can find at a book store. Unfortunately it’s only available online for now (you can order it here).

There are a few quirks with the first edition, namely the fact that the inner-margin is not large enough, and that the book is printed in the wrong direction of the paper, making the book quite hard to keep open. Except for that, the content is great, and the printing quality is awesome. All pages are full color, and that for under 30 € shipped!

So if you are looking for a webdesign book, here is a great one!

If you want more information about the book, here is the Smashing Magazine article. You can download the first chapter of the book for free from there

Edit January 30, 2010: Smashing Magazine put a second free chapter online: check their blogpost!

Welcome to the blog!

If you want to know more about me, just click on the “website” link in the upper-left of the page. So I won’t be presenting myself here again. So you might be wondering what this blog is going to be about. I’m going to write about the things I’m interested in, and again, you can find an overview of what I’m interested in here.

This blog might seem a little different than the regular Wordpress blog. This is because I wanted to make it as simple and clutter-free as possible. So it’s a single column design, with only the posts and the comments. So no tag clouds, unnecessary plugins, search or calendar. I’m keeping it simple!

You can subscribe to the RSS in your address bar, or follow me on twitter (@cpauwels) to know about new posts.

So just have fun reading the blog, and if you want to comment go ahead!