I've had an iPhone for about 2 weeks now (Xmas pressy from me to me) and I'm loving it.

The screen uses a weird form of touch sensitivity that makes use of the heat from your fingers, if you use a stylus it will not work, even a fingernail fails to operate the screen! This way it cannot be accidentally operated whilst in your pocket but.... it also means that if you have even moderately manicured nails(my wife) they get in the way and it doesn't work!

It took me a while to get used to the keyboard but once you realise that you can keep your finger down and move around to get the right key its easy.

As of the 15th there's a new firmware update(1.1.3) that introduces some new stuff:
Multiple SMS recipients
Home screen icon rearranging
Multipage home screen(s)
Bookmark web pages to the home screen
Pseudo GPS using the cell towers in Google maps
There's more but this is the fun stuff for me.

I'm no PC or Mac fanboy but I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft are good at the big ideas but they're rough around the edges whilst Apple are good at making the small stuff work.
What I mean by this is that there's nothing really revolutionary in the iPhone but its a pleasurable thing to hold and use, just the way the thing scrolls or zooms in will bring a smile to someone's face.
When I was in London I wandered into the Apple store on Regent Street. Having worked with PR1ME's, VAX's and PC's for 20+ years it was (almost) a revelation to come across such a cohesive experience. I almost bought an iMac just for the sake of it but realised that I wouldn't be allowed to live long enough to take it out the box

Big Country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Country
Runrig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runrig
Not too sure about the head count though

What about
The Who ?
Pink Floyd ?

Hi all,
I've been very very inactive here for some time so I thought I'd fill you in on what I've been up to.

In early December we started the process of buying a house.
In mid December we went to London so my wife could collect her MBE from Buck house.
At the end of December there was this Christmas thing.
Last week we got the keys for the house and have been moving in since.

On top of all this I've had what was probably the most hectic work schedule of my life with multiple projects needing done/finished in the most ridiculous time lines possible.

The London trip was good fun in the most part with Prince Charles handing out the metalwork instead of the Queen. He was very nice and had a chat with everybody who received an award. There was about 200 people receiving awards at the ceremony ranging from a woman who got an MBE for "Services to pig farming" to a couple of marines who were awarded for bravery for something they did in Iraq (I never did find out). Betty Jackson the fashion designer and Joe Cocker the singer got OBE's.
It was quite cool and rather weird to drive right into the palace but after a brief security check we were parked in the quadrangle and walking to the main entrance before we had time to realize what had just happened.

I'd lived in London for 10 years between 87 and 97 but had not been back since, it was interesting to see what had changed/not changed, what I found was that the thing that had changed most was ME. It was a rather interesting experience to see all the insular, self contained people managing to pretend that nobody else existed knowing full well that I was just like them ONCE.
After 4 days I was glad to leave.

On the gadget front I've been a bit busy:
HP TX1260 (1100 in the US) tablet PC
--- Nice and small but SU and Vista wont play together very well.

Lumix FZ-18 camera with 28-504mm zoom
--- Fantastic camera with image stabilisation and loads of useful features.

Apple iPhone
--- Very impressed, its just so slick compared with my Pocket PC phone.

New Washing machine, Dishwasher, tumble dryer and fridge/freezer
--- Not really gadgets but at ~£2000 they better bloody good!

So that's it, not much of an excuse for not being around but it'll do.

PS.
I'm currently exporting a 10500 frame animation of the street model I'd uploaded images of previously (old forum I think) that's due for Tuesday, I'll drop it on youtube later in the week.

Jeff:

@unknownuser said:

How long will it be before Google is walking through my living room. Wow.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/30/google_maps_is_spyin.html

Here are some other 'fun' finds:
http://googlesightseeing.com/2007/06/01/street-view-roundup/

Yup, I'm getting the same now.
Its quite good, maybe it'll be fixed soon.

http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/

and their home page:
http://www.dbfletcher.com/capstan/

TIG welding...Now that takes me back.

Before I ended up in architecture I was an engineer, I did a mechanical engineering apprenticeship and for 2 years worked at a fabrication business making all sorts of things amongst which was armour plating for light tanks.

This armour was an aluminium alloy and I had to weld several 2" cubes onto 7'x2'x2" plates (expensive)
On several occasions the 2" blocks would just melt whilst using the TIG welder making the entire piece scrap!

All my family are engineers but one of my cousins is a TRUE welder, he lies underneath 30,000 ton nuclear submarines and welds 18" plate together!

One of my uncles does this:http://www.anglering.com/gallery.html
Just think what you could make out of some of their stuff.

Mark,
I love the Circle Totem, I'd love to see the shadows that would cast.

Duet looks fantastic, how hard was it to get a good smoothed surface on the metal? I can imagine even the slightest imperfection would show such soft curves.

Me next.... I want to hide behind the boulder...

Well done, you've got some fantastic images on your blog.

Found this on Wincustomize.com:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/cool-things-you-can-do-with-google.html
The calculator and notebook are new to me.

Tomasz,
Nice...Very Nice

Do you want the finished model of the interior?
Its a 28Mb model that zips to 15Mb, drop us an email address here or via a PM and its yours.

I've also got the exterior done, well almost, but I keep being jumped from job to job at the moment. Here's a shot done some time ago.
If you want to have a go with this your also welcome to this model. (8.5Mb/3.5Mb)

I Tried.......It Died.....

It was too much for 'K' I plan to try it in bits, like the image above.

@unknownuser said:

I love the prism-effect in your background/floor

Shaun, Thanks, but I've a bit of a confession to make, All I did was slap the Stainless Steel material that came with 'K' on to the dummy floor I stuck in the model before I exported it.

Composition of the image was based on the fact that it was 1:05pm and thats 5 minuits into MY drinking time.

In 'K' if you set the sky to hemispherical and then click on the black swatch in the dialog, you can then browse/select your HDR image.

You don't actually need to model anything for the sky as 'K' does it all itself.
Theoretically you don't need any light sources as the HDR image will provide all the light you need but if you want shadows you will obviously need at least one (the default sun)

Its been a good 2 years since I did any rendering and that was in 3D Studio so I'm a bit rough on the subject and the image above is the full extent of my 'K' knowledge.

Good luck and have fun.

HDRI: High Dynamic Range Image.
Essentially, a photo is taken at multiple exposures then combined in to one file (xxx.hdr),
When used in Kerythea or another 3d Renderer then the image can be used as a light source. It there is a red brick wall in the image then the light emitting from that part of the image will be red.
If this is done with a 180 degree panorama and used as a hemispherical sky in 'K' then a full fake (but realistic) lighting environment can be generated without the usual multiple lights.

At least that's what I think is happening . Correct me if I'm wrong.

Here's the Wiki info about HDRI:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDRI
Here's a links to some sample downloads:http://www.hdrimaps.com/downloads.html

I've never really given Kerky a go so inspired by the great posts here I thought it was time.

This is straight out of SU with only the materials slightly modified (reflection etc) and an HDRI sky.

I'm well impressed with Kerky.

Me thinks your model would be a perfect environment for:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=126&t=3927