Northlander.org is the online persona of Dan Bowling, a web developer living in Missoula, MT.

Dan Bowling's Journal Entries

Bresnan DVR 30 Second Skip

After getting cable for the first time since 1992, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have a 30 second commercial skip button on the Motorola remote. After some internet searching, I found these instructions:

1) Press the “Cable” button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2) Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice.
3) Type in the code 994. The “Cable” button will blink twice
4) Press (do not hold) the “Setup” button
5) Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip)
6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip

I replaced the mute button, since I never run into a need to mute it (I just hit pause instead, since I have a DVR.)

06.06.09 | # | Start the conversation

Time lapse of Galactic Center

Totally worth an HD download…

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman.

05.26.09 | # | Start the conversation

Wave video in super slow motion

This is amazing HD video of a wave in super slow motion. Gotta love the BBC.

05.09.09 | # | Start the conversation

High Speed Video

You have to watch this… Great high speed video shots.


I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

04.20.09 | # | Start the conversation

Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, “We don’t serve your type.”

Via @tomfite

04.19.09 | # | Start the conversation

Great Billboard

Now this is what I call advertising. After the auto maker Audi ran a national billboard campaign featuring the text “Your move, BMW” a local BMW dealer came up with the perfect counter ad: “Checkmate”

bmw_v_audi_sign_war

Via SvN.

If you like that sort of thing, the comments on the SvN post lead me to some more interesting examples (which may or may not be real.)

04.16.09 | # | 1 Comment

Stop Motion: Dancing Type

Not as good as the one I posted before, but still interesting.

04.15.09 | # | Start the conversation

What we can’t see in the night sky

It really is amazing what we can’t see. Todays Astronomy Picture Of the Day takes a 40 hour, wide field, exposure to show what the night sky would look like if we could see what was really there. This isn’t your normal astro-photo and is worth a look.

04.11.09 | # | Start the conversation

Quotes on IP Law

Ars wrote a recent article called Rep “Hollywood” Berman calls for new IP law—using dodgy data. It’s an interesting read. I’ve pulled out a few of my favorite quotes for your enjoyment.

From Robert Pittman, cofounder of MTV:

“Stealing music is not killing music,” said Pittman. “When I talk to people in the music business, most of them will admit that the problem is they’re selling songs and not albums. I mean, you do the math… I realized that as an industry we’d kind of been smoking crack.”

And my personal favorite:

[...] director Steven Soderbergh, who is currently the vice president of the Directors Guild of America, wants us to become more like France. “Litigation is slow and the Internet is fast, so it doesn’t make sense to ask the government to be our police,” he said. “What we would like is to be deputized to solve our own problems, to be granted the kind of pull-down and inspection abilities being proposed in France so we can act swiftly and fairly on our own behalf.”

04.08.09 | # | Start the conversation

Failed Rebranding

I’m not quite sure why so many companies undergo rebranding initiatives. Walmart did one recently that made no sense to me, and Tropicana just decided to rebrand as well. In fact, it appears that Tropicana’s rebranding directly caused a 20% reduction in sales. It’s not hard to tell why when you compare the old and the new packages. More on the AdAge article about this blunder.

Branding is expensive. Changing an existing brand is even more expensive. Going from a good brand to what can only be described as “generic” is sheer insanity. Idiots.

EDIT: Zeldman makes a good case too about how this is proof design matters.

04.05.09 | # | Start the conversation

“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.” -Jack Handey

03.24.09 | # | Start the conversation

Invisible Homeless Man

Now that’s some creative marketing!

03.23.09 | # | Start the conversation

Bathtub IV Tilt Shift Video

I’ve always been a fan of these tilt shift videos. This one is no exception. The best part is the helicopter, IMHO.


Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

03.21.09 | # | Start the conversation

World Builder


World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

03.14.09 | # | 1 Comment

Critical Album

After spotting this on Nick’s blog, I figured I’d give it a go (sans Gimp).

turkey_youth_union_album

All the content above was randomly generated, according to this meme and slopped together using Photoshop. I can’t help but think that it really does look like it could be a real album.

To add my own twist, I decided to link to the first song I could find that was free… it ended up being pretty good too. Listen to it to complete the experience.

Working with such random content was sort of refreshing. It certainly let me spend some time focusing on getting the typography just the way I wanted it.

02.28.09 | # | 3 Comments

Jakob Nielsen, on the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh:

During its first decade, the Mac offered clearly superior usability compared to competing personal computer platforms (DOS, Windows, OS/2). Not until Windows 95 did the PC start to approximate Mac-level usability. Despite this Mac advantage, PCs have sold vastly better in every single year since 1984, and the Mac has yet to exceed a single-digit market share.

The Mac’s miserable marketplace performance seems to pose a strong argument against usability. Why bother, if it doesn’t sell? The counter-argument is that usability is the only reason Mac survived.

Yeah. I can dig that reasoning.

Via.

02.16.09 | # | Start the conversation

It’s 2009. Where’s My Jet Pack?

All I can say is wow. This water-based jet pack is way better than a jet ski.

02.02.09 | # | Start the conversation

Stop Motion: Her Morning Elegance

Her Morning Elegance, a stop motion music video by Oren Lavie. Taken with 3225 still photos.

Via.

01.31.09 | # | 1 Comment

History of the Internet

Wow. Interesting to know, if not a very broad look at it.

01.23.09 | # | Start the conversation

How the Day Sounds


How The Day Sounds from Miky Wolf.

01.22.09 | # | Start the conversation

« Older Entries