I know! It’s an advertisement, I don’t care :) I still think it’s great!

Apologies for the flash, but I just had to share this illustration I found on odosketch, a website that allows you to create and save sketches, and also view the ‘making of’ sketches from others.

Watching how someone else has created an illustration, the different style and techniques, is something else. It’s hypnotic, adictive, take a look!

I think this is extraordinary! It feels hypnotic and relaxing.

So much of movement is invisible to the human eye. Sure, our eyes can see a cymbal move when struck by a drum stick. But it’s what our eyes can’t see that is most captivating. Metal rippling as if it were fabric fluttering in the wind, droplets of water bouncing and hovering just above the surface of a puddle; the beauty and science of movement is in the details. And the details are often the result of vibrations. -Fluke

Via PetaPixel

You might remember how irritated I was when the Vogue Knitting Magazine app for the iPad was released but was only available to US residents (however failed to mention this in their email announcement)?

I’m very pleased that after receiving another email announcing the app last week I checked again and woo! available to all! I’m even more pleased that they have done a decent job in digitising the magazine (it hasn’t been redesigned specifically for digital viewing), the quality of the pages are very good.

It is a pity that the 360° views are loaded from the Vogue website, they’re helpful and a necessary addition to a digital edition of a magazine. For wifi only iPad users such as myself viewing this away from known networks it was a bit disappointing – I’ve given up hope that QLD Rail will ever install their often talked about wifi network.

There is also no option to print a pattern from the magazine, so I will need to take screen shots and print the pattern pages. I don’t know about you, but I scribble and make notes all over knitting patterns :)

Now for some pretty screen shots!

Again I have to say, what makes this digital magazine release an absolute winner for me is that they have created their own application to easily download and organise magazines. I know many companies aren’t doing this because they take issue with the Apple iTunes system and the method of approving apps etc… but it’s my preference and if a magazine is offering their editions this way I’ll download them.

Do you have an iPad? If you tried any magazine apps that you’d recommend, or even just read about one, drop me a line I’d love to hear about some new ones!

This post was going to be more about house hunting and my new style board over at Pinterest, but really I think I want to share how much I love the direction digital magazine publishing is taking – mainly thanks to tablet devices such as the iPad.

Martha Stewart Living is a perfect example of publishers and designers harnessing the potential of digital issues of their magazine – it’s full of interactive features, video, sound, panoramic images and external links. What grabbed me right away is not only the great quality of images but the structure of the pages: scroll down through a story, flick to the right to the next article, jump to the bottom of a story for this recipe and then easily return to the point of the story you were up to. It’s very well done :)

I’m just testing an app that offers many magazines through it’s service, Zinio, I’m off to a rocky start with it due to a special National Geographic price download offer that was rejected at the final checkout due to the fact it is only valid for US subscribers – but it certainly has a large variety of magazines on offer.

I like that the Martha Stewart Living app is focussed just on their magazine and the experience is tailored just for them, already downloading the next issue :)

We were trapped by some rain on a walk into the city over the weekend, so I took the opportunity to play with a new iPhone camera app that I found last week. Silly name, Hipstamatic, but a fun app.

Something I found irritating but now like is that you can’t just run the app as a filter on existing images in your iPhone Photos, it’s nice to have to think about what combination of pretend filters and film you’ll use to take a picture rather than dressing up a boring iPhone photo.

I took screen shots of the app in use… you’d be better off checking out the website :)

*The flower photo was on the way home after the sun had been back out for a while.

The photo above I snapped with my phone on my way to climbing yesterday, then ran it through ShakeItPhoto for iPhone – pretty cute app and I have a soft spot for overly processed looking saturation and exposure effects so I’m having a bit of fun with it at the moment.

Climbing felt just spectacular yesterday despite my injury last week and a shaky start, I attempted climbs above my current level and completed each one – not looking particularly elegant or controlled in the process, but I got there!  I then had a quiet afternoon home so I sat down and finished knitting Mousie by Ysolda Teague and just about finished the Drawstring Chemise. It’s blocking at the moment, I just have to seam it, complete the arm holes, and then make a decision about what to use for the drawstring. Even with all of this Christmas weight, looking at it all laid out I can see I’ve gone overboard with the positive ease… I’m pretty sure I’ll just give it to my Mum, I think she’ll like it :)

Photos of these projects to come. I have a fairly busy day today, I have to make time for some baking this afternoon for Australia Day tomorrow and then more climbing tonight (yay!).

Apple Cinema Display

Magic Mouse

I love my macbook pro, it’s seriously the best computer I’ve ever had, but I need to rethink his current friends. I’m planning to introduce him to a new display and mouse, a magic mouse at that! ;)

My Dell secondary monitor at home is driving me crazy, no matter what I have tried there’s just too much yellow in the display. As I begin the colour calibration for a brief instant it flashes to a perfect setting, but of course you can’t capture the settings of that flash, so I go through the options and even though it seems like I’ve got it just right… too much yellow or suddenly way way to much contrast. I of course blame the monitor and decide an Apple Cinema Display is an absolute necessity :)

The Magic Mouse just looks really cool and intuitive in the way it works.