This is one of those little issues that has taken me longer to figure out then it should have. I collaborate on a local network quite a bit and often have to tell someone on my team where a certain file is located. Copying and pasting the path directory never seemed intuitive to me, and on OS X (unless I’ve missed something obvious) it wasn’t.

So I finally found the trick in the oft neglected “Services” menu. With any file selected choose Finder > Services > Summarize. This will automatically copy and paste the directory path into the Summary window.

Note: This will also work with some other options in the Services menu, TextEdit for example.

As a student and practitioner of motion graphics it is hard to separate my sense of nostalgia with the awesomeness of this intro for the ABC Friday Night Movie. This stuff was hard to do without digital tools! The graphics, text, animation, effects, voiceover and music are all perfectly aligned here. It just so happens at the age of 13 I was one of the viewers for this particular showing of The Shining. To set the scene: I watched this with a co-ed group of friends at a late night birthday party for a friend of mine. Much freaking out and screams were heard that night. Good times.

H-mart, a grocery store chain featuring huge square footage and Korean and East Asian imported foodstuffs has opened a store nearby. Here are some of the designs for past promotional material. I love their use of bold colors and the slightly “in-your-face” composition style. A nice example of visual grammar in action:  you don’t need to understand the language to understand that their brand stands for fresh, clean and healthy food as well as greeters with oversize Micky Mouse gloves.

The Massachusetts DMV has a problem with red ink.( I cannot be the first person to have made this bad joke). See the picture below? On the left is a Massachusetts inspection sticker from January 2009, on the right is another Mass inspection sticker from 6 months later. Looks like someone went with the lowest bid from the printer. Wonder what law enforcement thinks of this? There must be thousands of stickers on the road with colors ranging from white to pink to red.

Update: Local Fox News did a report on this several weeks ago. Of all organizations, I can’t believe Fox didn’t go with the “red ink” – “DMV” pun. C’mon people, do I have to do your pandering for you?

Package design, while not my expertise, has always been of interest to me. For example, I followed for days, with fascination, the disaster that was the Tropicana orange juice redesign a few months ago. While nowhere near that level, I did find myself standing in the supermarket aisle the other day scrutinizing this new label from Stonyfield Farms. The type, imagery and colors are all very pleasant, but it took me longer than I would have liked to confirm, that this was indeed yogurt. (The container top was no help either).

Click image to enlarge.

With few exceptions, the design of most automobiles has hit a dead end for quite a while. I have a theory that the best and brightest designers in the automobile industry have funnelled all of their creativity and passion into designing car taillights. Tracing the design and evolution of these innovative taillights could make a great book or at least a New Yorker article. I’m available for the right price, BTW.

There have been a number of dust storms in the Southern hemisphere that have affected Australia and New Zealand. The city of Sydney has been covered by clouds of red dust that are simultaneously beautiful and sinister. Flickr user Tom Coates has created a gallery of amazing images.

Gather around the digital hearth children, here’s a story about a era before Youtube was a glimmer in anyone’s eye. A man ahead of his time, Jason Zada, created a site called WeeklyDv back in 2002. Each week there was a designated theme, anyone could submit a video and they would be put up for critique/comment.

There were a few “rules” to the site that were innovative then (and still would be today). In addition to following a theme, you had to shoot, edit and export the movie in 4 hours or less. I’m a firm believer in the idea of constraints enabling creativity and this was one of the reasons the concept appealed to me.
Over the lifespan of the site I made about a dozen movies, some were better then others, but I always had fun and the WeeklyDv community was a great one.

On a personal note, at this point in my life I was a stay-at-home dad with a 1 year old and the project gave me a much needed structure and creative outlet. In fact, the following clip pretty much sums it all up. Long live Guerrilla Dv!
(P.s. The video starts off severely underexposed but improves shortly!)

Techsmith is a company that makes useful software for folks like me who spend a lot of time documenting what happens on the computer screen. I have paid for multiple licenses and numerous upgrades for different applications over the years and never felt any regret. In addition to the quality of the software, I have always respected how easy their website makes it for anyone to find and install their products.

Here’s a case study. I have a new system on which I need to install Snagit, their screen capture software. After going to the home page I see a clearly marked link for Snagit. I click on it and am presented with a group of three links, the second of which is labeled “Try for Free”.

Click to enlarge view.

Clicking on this link presents me with a big ol’ button labeled “Download Snagit Trial”. Clicking on this button starts the download immediately.

Click to enlarge view.

Three clicks = software download. To extend the experience, my Snagit trial is fully functional for 30 days. No export limitations or crippled functionality. Depending on the speed of my connection I can download, install and be using the application in about 3 minutes.

This is the way all trial software web sites should work. I don’t want to fill out a form. I don’t want a salesman to contact me. I don’t want a link sent to my email. I want the software up and running as soon as humanly possible. All companies should make it this easy for me to give them my money. My only criticism is that the site isn’t always consistent, for downloads to Camtasia for Mac, you need to go through the extra step of submitting an email.

Every summer, a vacant lot near Boston’s Chinatown Gate becomes a free, outdoor theater, showing Kung-Fu and classic Chinese-language films under the stars. Organized by “friends of the site”, you should go!
For more info see www.filmsatthegate.org.