Wacom is the main offender in the tablet world, all they do is tablets and tablet accessories. Wacom offers a full range of tablets with a wide range of prices starting with the Bamboo (less than $100 for the base model) series which is for casual use and ending with the monstrous Cintiq 21UX ($2000+ for the top model) which is a full backlit LCD monitor that you can draw directly on to. The Intous 4 series falls right in the middle of Cintiq and Bamboo and for me, it is perfect.

I got my Intous 4 Medium for around $450 CND, and so far I think it was well worth the investment. Before I purchased mine I asked around to see what other tablet users thought about tablet size. I found a wide range of answers, everything from “ get a small one because you have to move your wrist less” to “get the large one because it feels like a real canvas”. I bought the medium one because it was exactly the same size as my 17” Mac Book Pro so the tablet just slides into my laptop case for easy transport. I am stoked on the size of the tablet. I find that I have enough room to not feel cramped while designing and not so much room that my arm tires out from moving around to much.

The Good:

The pen (or stylus) that comes with the Intous 4 is really comfortable to use, and a number of extra tips are included to give the pen multiple different feelings. My favourite tip is the felt tip – makes it feel just like a skinny sharpie! Of course at the professional level of tablets multiple levels of sensitivity are expected this model offers 2048. The multiple levels allow you to pick a brush size say 50px and stroke from soft to firm and have the stroke start at 5px and end at 50px – much the same as stroking a felt pen on a sheet of paper. I’d say for my standards this pen functions as intutively as a real pen right down to if I make a mistake my first reaction is to flip the pen over and start erasing, which is exactly what happens. The pen automatically swaps your tools from pen or pencil tool to the eraser tool. Again the levels of sensitivity work great, except instead of going from skinny to fat, the erasers opacity levels change – press softly and it barely erases press hard and it will erase with a sharp edge.

The mouse is exactly what you’d expect from Wacom. It feels good, and is always reliable. I really enjoy not having to worry about batteries with this mouse – as long as it is on the tablet pad with in the working area, the mouse works.  I often use the mouse more than I use the pen because I feel like I have better control with it.

The OLED screen is amazing. It was one of the reasons I went for the medium over the small size Intous 4. You can program the 8 buttons and 4 scroll wheel functions on the side of the tablet to do almost whatever you want. You have the ability in the settings panel to specify what each button does depending on what program you are using. Based on the program selected the windows on the tablet will display the function, for example I can set the button to be “Command S” for Photoshop and have the OLED screen display “SAVE”. It might not seem like a huge deal at first but you can get pretty creative if you are always making use of different hot keys all the time.

The Bad:

I have to say that over all I have been extremely satisfied with my purchase. However, that being said, there are a few glitchy things that happen from time to time that I feel obligated to mention.

My first complaint is if you close your laptop and open it again the OLED doesn’t come back on. Really its not a huge deal the tablet still works, but you can’t make use of the OLED screen. It only becomes annoying if you have a bunch of different settings for a bunch of programs. Which brings me to my second complaint about the Intous 4.

Remember the OLED screen I was talking about… the one that I paid the extra cash for? Well I have found that it rarely works as advertised. I don’t think it has anything to do with the screen its self, but is more of a software issue with the settings. When the tablet was brand new I spent the better part of a day opening each application I regularly use, identifying all the hot keys and common features I use and then setting up the buttons on the tablet to match. About a week later, for whatever reason, the settings were all deleted. At first I was pretty annoyed, I went through and re-set all my settings and continued to work with the tablet. Again, my setting files were deleted. This time I just went and re-set the hot keys for Photoshop. Next time I used the tablet… Deleted. I am tired of re-setting my settings every time I use the tablet. Those 8 keys are supposed to improve my workflow not cause me to waste what I am sure must be 8 hours at this point setting up the dang tablet. I am confident that this issue I am having is not a user error, but if anyone has advice for this I’d love to hear it.

The Verdict:

Over all this tablet for me is totally worth it. Despite having a few issues, this tablet improves my work flow (granted not as much as it could) and it allows me the use of a pen which for certain applications can not be beat. I would feel comfortable recommending it to anyone who is serious about design, at $450 CND it’s really probably overkill for casual users.

If you like the sounds of using a fancy tablet but lack the skills to necessitate a tablet, get the skills in the
Interactive Design program @ Capilano University in North Vancouver

But as a Vancouver Web Design Student and a new media enthusiast I am now hitting the streets to take in the sites right along side everyone else.

The second installation that I want to feature in my Robot Salmon 2010 Interactive Media commentary, is the digital wall that Switch Interactive created.

Technology advances, Switch Interactive walks us through an amazing experience (an Ian Smith photo)

The ” Digital Gateway” is one of the world’s longest interactive walls. You can find it downtown, beside the recently facelifted skating rink at Robson Square.

The animated presentations on the wall are randomly created by the spectators, or as us web designers would call them, “the users”. The motion from the crowd triggers sensors that detect how many people are nearby and how fast they are walking.

The Digital Gateway was created by Vancouver’s very own Switch Interactive. They are a small, independent studio that won the $600,000 contract to create the digital wall. The government deemed this interactive project worthy and lucky for us funded one of our local firms. Switch Interactive also did some interesting work for the BC Pavilion – but I will save that for another posting!

Catherine Winckler, partner and creative director of Switch describes the project “We looked at it as a new way for architecture, as well as a new opportunity to do things with walls that will relate to people. We can tailor the wall, it can be easily programmed within 24 hours to have a completely different ambience… we can change the mood, we can change the stories.”

Apparently this type of technology could even one day in the near future be applied to your umbrella so that you could display different images and information as you walked and have strangers interact with you unknowingly as they passed you on the street… could you imagine how amazing that would be? I could talk for ever about the user experience of that product!!!! I would be thrilled to never see a black, gloomy umbrella again!

There are already You tube videos up of the wall, I am sure they are inspiring Interactive Designers around the globe – the possibilities for this technology seem endless and I am sure we will witness an influx of interactive art and advertising over the next decade that will put Tom Cruise and Minority Report to shame.

read more about this in this Vancouver Sun article

Check out the info on other Code Live events and installations around Vancouver

If seeing all of this amazing Interactive Design and Interactive Media has got you thinking that you would love to get involved in this field of work check out my program at Capilano University Interactive Design

But as a Vancouver Web Design student with a passion for new media and interactive design, my mind is being blown every time I turn around. The ground breaking installations and interactive art that are being featured all around the city should put Vancouver on the map when it comes to interactive design innovation.

I plan to roam about the city to see and test out as much of the Interactive Media as I can. I will be making daily posts on Robot Salmon about my discoveries. Here is the installation that is on the top of my list today.

Vectorial Elevation - world class Interactive Design

Vectorial Elevation is an interactive artwork that allows you to direct powerful light beams and transform Vancouver’s skyline between February 4 to 28, 2010. This installation will light up the sky every night, but don’t think for a second that it is as simple as just a few high powered spot lights on timers!

The installation is currently considered one of the world’s largest interactive artworks. It was created by the Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

It is a totally interactive installation in every sense of the word. Anyone can go online and design a light pattern that will be blasted into the sky through the website. As users you will be engaged in the experience beyond just creating a light pattern. A personal webpage is automatically created for each participant, documenting their participation and displaying views from 4 project webcams.

The technology that this “simple” installation utilizes goes beyond something that I could have imagined in my wildest interactive media dreams. You will need to have Google Earth set up on your computer to design your light pattern.

Some of the tech specs for the set up:
The lights: Xenon 10kW robotic searchlights, four webcams, Linux servers, GPS, Google Earth 3D DMX interface, custom-software.
The Interactive area covers: 1,000 x 1,000 meters, visibility 15 Km radius (depending on atmospheric conditions)

Today we are all aware that Internet connects people all around the world and this Interactive media display takes advantage of that at every turn. When the searchlights shine someone’s design into the cloudy night sky above Vancouver during the 2010 Winter games, four Axis webcams will take digital pictures from the control room on the West End, the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, a high rise on Beach avenue and the Vanier Park Marina.

The images that are generated are watermarked with the participant’s information (the design team has built a custom-made application to do this) When the pictures are taken, a web page is built for the participant and an email is sent out with their new custom URL. The personal web page displays both the real and virtual images of the user’s design as well as their name, location, date, time and comments.

They also have a Flash applet to allow visitors to see the four project cameras in real time. The video is subtitled with the name and location of the participant whose design is currently in the sky.check it out for yourself.

I can only imagine all the time and effort it took to implement this awe inspiring Interactive Media installation. As an Information Architect enthusiast I was excited to browse through the website and learn more about the process they took when developing the project.

Information Architecture for this 2010 Interactive Design project

Check out the website for Vectorial Elevation

This installation is part of CODE, the Cultural Olympiad’s Digital Edition. If you are a designer, a developer, a web specialist, or interested in interactive media in any way, you should head out the door right now to check out the CODE venues.
Check out the info on other Code Live events and installations around Vancouver

If seeing all of this amazing Interactive Design has got you thinking that you would love to get involved in this field of work check out my program at Capilano University Interactive Design

D.O.G: Any advice for up and coming social media people? How do you separate  yourself from the hacks?

Kris Krug: I think the one thing that is missed in the whole popularity of it all is that it really comes down to producing rad content all the time. Whether it is myself or Rebecca Bollwitt or Dave Olson, you look at these guys and the stuff they publish is awesome, it provides a service to the community, it’s deep, it’s not superficial, there’s solid leadership represented there. It’s great stuff. And then they go back and do it again tomorrow and they do it again the next day.

D.O.G: So it is all about content?

Kris Krug: Well I think that is huge part of it. And from there you can start to layer stuff on top of it. So, I am a big fan of identifying heroes and then reaching out to the them by following them. I can say hey Gillian Shaw, digital life reporter for the vancouver sun, I love your work, here is my work, check me out. I mean that is the cool part of the social media revolution, the dis-inter-mediation of the communications realm.

You can just talk to people. You can just look up the New york times digital life reporter guy and pitch him on your stuff. You can pitch him right there. He is going to see it and you know it. Before you might have had to work to get that foot in the door. If you are publishing awesome stuff and you reach out to these people, you are going to find that you are met with quick success.

D.O.G: So it is really about being social and being out there more than anything else?

Kris Krug: yeah yeah, but you have to do it on top of this platform. This platform of awesomeness. whether it be awesome photos, cool Canadian stories like Rebecca Bollwitt, or old timey wanderings that Dave Olson does. These are deep, unique, and awesome perspectives. If you have that, you are set.

Where it falls down and you look like an ass is when you are the guy tweeting about twitter, or the guy blogging about blogging. Those are the nightmare scenarios. Don’t be that guy. If your talking about differentiation, about how to separate yourself. Don’t be that guy. It sounds cheesy, but you should write about stuff you are passionate about.

For example, I am out at New York Fashion week, I am following the Olympic games and I am shooting photos every day. Give yourself some fuel for the engine that is Social Media.

D.O.G: So how can we turn all of this awesomeness into profits?

Kris Krug: So, the social media approach to things acknowledges that markets are conversations. People my age and your age can smell advertising and marketing coming a mile away. So if you start using these channels to throw marketing and advertising up on them you will fail. You will actually lose credibility instead of gaining it and it will backfire. The whole popularity of this stuff is a response to people not wanting to be marketed too and working around marketing.

The whole point of it is that it is authentic. It’s people to people communication. So ways that it can be used effectively are when you see people using it effectively for customer service and support. Like last week a buddy of mine was bitching about the service he got at fido mobile and so he tweeted about it and someone responded from the fido twitter account and helped him on twitter.
I think that is great example managing public relations using social media and also strengthening the fido brand by creating stories like that.
I think the way to monetize this social media stuff is not through talking marketing speak; it is using it as tool to actually talk to, and engage with customers. You obviously can’t use social media to engage with every customer one to one but you can pick out customers with good questions to answer. They say that if one person in a room asks a question there is a good chance that other people in that room are wondering the same thing. It is the same with social media. If Gregor Robinson, the mayor of Vancouver, is using twitter to respond to his constituents, he can’t respond to all of his constituents. But if he can notice some trends, or some issues bubbling up, people talking about the same stuff and then respond one person about one of those issues, that is a real deep engagement, that’s priceless

D.O.G: What tips do you have for “making it” as a successful freelancer?

Kris Krug: I think it’s really, really important to just get out there. That means going to networking events, keeping you ear to the ground and showing up with enthusiasm. I say yes to a lot of stuff. I am always keen to take on new things, and try new stuff. I’ll say yes to jobs that maybe don’t pay the best rate or whatever. I am also, constantly scanning for those great jobs. But, you are never going to get those great jobs unless you are constantly out there doing it. Unless you are out there getting stuff published and getting people to talk about your work.

Get your work out there into the wild. I use a creative commons license to publish my work, which allows artists and other non profits to use my work for free with credit. And it gets my work out there and seen all the time. For instance, my photo is the front page of the Dalai lama’s website. My photo is the front page Eckart Tolle’s Website. Both of those people are using my photos for free with credit. But it gives me huge notoriety. and their linking back to me.

D.O.G: My mom would cry if  one of my photos was on the front page of Eckart Tolle’s Website.

Kris Krug: Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha ha….. and the flip side of that is that every time the Dalai Lama links to me and Eckart Tolle links to me I become easier to find using search engines.
So if you search for Vancouver Photography, Vancouver photographer, or any similar combination of those words you will find that I am the number one hit that comes up on Google. The idea there is by giving away my work to non-profits, creatives, artists, and other people to use and encouraging them to link back to me I am ensuring that I am the top hit on Google for those key words. It helps with getting my work out there and bringing notoriety, and it helps to get me great search placement on google.

Speaking of the future, have we arrived yet? Is the future now?

When dreaming of the future and thinking of all the amazing things that technology can do for our society, one thing that is at the top of the list is cars! I am ready for the electric car to be the household norm anytime now. I watched the Jetsons as a kid – so what gives? Is it really that hard to make a super techy car? Not according to this 1958 disney cartoon but apparently we still have a long way to go…

Google says they will cease to support Internet Explorer 6 for all of their online applications starting March 1st.

Web Professionals are collectively shedding a single tear of joy.  IE 6 is generally excepted as the worst browser in current use.  It is the only browser to ever to have multiple Facebook groups calling for its demise. The wikipedia page for IE 6 describes it like this:

“This version of Internet Explorer is widely derided for its security issues and lack of support for modern web standards, making frequent appearances in “worst tech products of all time” lists, with some publications labeling it as the “least secure software on the planet.” Campaigns have been established in order to encourage users to upgrade to newer versions of Internet Explorer or switch to different browsers, and some websites have dropped support for IE6 entirely.”

If Google is successful in removing IE 6 from use they will have firmly established themselves as rulers of the Internet. This is huge news for two reasons:

One, It is going to cut web development time significantly and, two, it is the first time Google has used its power for evil as opposed to good.

Google is known for sharing knowledge, giving away software, and collaboration. They are not known for their ruthless ability to destroy demand for certain products with a single policy decision.

Why wouldn’t Google want to destroy IE 6?  Just last month Microsoft admitted that it was flaws in IE 6 that made the recent Chinese based security breaches possible.

Furthermore, Google has positioned themselves as a direct competitor to IE 6 ever since they launched Chrome – Google’s in house browser. Currently IE commands 63 percent of the general Internet browsing market and 73 percent of the business market. Leading a boycott against IE not only makes good sense within the world of web development, it is also a smart business move for Google.

Firebug is a software plugin that can be added onto Firefox as tool for debugging websites. Ever since I started designing websites I have been forced to use Firefox for debugging all of my work, which was not a horrible fate. Firefox is a perfectly fine browser and there are tons of great plugins available for Firefox to improve all different kinds of workflows. Firefox also keeps up to date with current web standards and encourages users to update their browser software on regular basis. Furthermore, the anarchist in me loves the fact that Firefox is open source.

However, I am a Mac user and Safari is significantly faster on my machine. PC Adviser claims that Safari is 38 percent faster than Firefox. Safari also renders websites at a much higher resolution. So, understandably, I was thrilled when I found out I could have my cake and eat it too. Firebug Lite allows users to use the Firebug plugin with any available browser.

Here is how it works:

1. Place the code below in the head of any web project that  you are working on.

<script  type=”text/javascript”src=”http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js></script>

2. Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet

3. Load your web project into the browser of your choice

4. Bam!!!! Check that out!!! Firebug!!!

That is it. Easy as pie.

It goes some thing like this:

“YES I KNOW IT WILL BE COOL!!! AND YES I KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE RELEASED TO THE EXACT MINUTE!! THANKS TO YOU THAT DATE IS BURNED INTO MY PSYCHE FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL LIFE!!! PLEASE JUST LET ME READ MY BOOK IN PEACE!!! YOU KNOW WHAT A BOOK IS DON’T YOU?!! THAT THING MADE OUT OF PAPER…..AND NO, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF STEVE JOBS DID NOT INVENT IT. THAT’S RIGHT, ITS AN INVENTION THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STEVE JOBS…

The iPad ad campaign was some of the most exciting word of mouth marketing in history (By the way, seriously? iPad? who the hell at apple thought it was a good idea to name the device an iPad? Maybe Apple is trying to market a new mobile tampon app.) Leaked, “rumors”, about the device have been floating around cyber-space for a year and a half. I am not sure if Apple did any studies, but it seems like a year and a half is the perfect amount of time to get every crazed Apple fan boy ( which there are many ) into such a frenzy about the release of the iPad that today has been hailed by many as nerd Superbowl.

One person riding on the 22 MacDonald bus in Vancouver this morning lamented at great length that he was probably not going to get any work done today because of the iPad release. He cursed Apple for not publishing the details of the Pad on the weekend when he would actually have the time to spend all day fantasizing about holding one IRL ( in real life.)

More surprisingly, Classes in the Interactive Design Department at Capilano University were partially suspended today so that both teachers and students could watch the new promotional video Apple has produced describing the functionality of the Pad.

The excitement level is high. However, it is still unclear whether or not this device will be useful or be a successful product. Stay tuned for next weeks blog. D.O.G will interview fellow interactive design students about their thoughts and feelings about the new Apple product.

If you know nothing about it here is the YouTube link to the unveiling:

Apple Unveils the iPad – New York Post

What I want to talk about is the price. The most important thing about the Apple iPad is its price point, because it rivals the price of netbooks and brings the intuitive experience of the Mac OS into the homes of everyone.

Here is the pricing from Live from the Apple ‘latest creation’ event from engadget.com

Pricing for iPad

Why is that price important? Because it’s competitive. PCs make non geeks feel stupid. They get viruses and they have a huge, gross learning curve. Apple has been making intuitive easy to use computers for years. The MacBook is beautiful machine and most importantly it is a pleasure to use. The only problem before now was the price.

Now for $500 you can get a Mac OS based home computer that has an intuitive and beautiful experience.

If you’ve never used and Apple computer, what you will discover when you do, is that Apple has created tools to make your tasks easy and to make your work flow more productive. They have built INTO their products a little bit of extra just for the user (the user is you by the way). I am a geek and am willing to pay a lot of money for that experience.

The Apple iPad tablet is not designed for me. It was not created for geeks and designers. It was designed and built to make the digital tasks of everyday people enjoyable.

Let’s say you work at a job where you interact with a computer on a very basic level. You haven’t bought a new computer in a couple of years. The last time you bought PC. It was a good deal (and you couldn’t shell out the cash for a weird Mac). You used it for checking you email, reading the news, playing a game or two and watching the occasional movie or YouTube clips. You browsed the internet to pay bills and do online banking. Most of the power of that PC is wasted on you.

Now you need a new computer and here is this thing that does the 8 or 9 tasks you want to do for $500 to $1000… and it makes you feel good while doing it.

Maybe you were even thinking about buying a net book for $300 or $400 dollars. But wait. All of the features of a MacBook that you need for around $500 (remember the average person is not looking to run CS5, they want to check their e-mail, read the news and order movie tickets)?

See my point? The price point is THE most important feature of the Apple Tablet. It isn’t for the MacBook fan boy it is for mass consumption. It is about creating a new paradigm of experience for the everyday user.

If you disagree with me leave a comment.

Or read this article by someone who does: Why the iPad Changes Everything