Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Every once in a while, I’ll search for something on Google and when I click through, I get a specific section of highlighted text that addresses the question I was asking. But it’s only every once in a while. The vast majority of the time, I either have to scan the page for the content or try to use the Find function.
Read MoreMake an 8-bit version of the Safari Web browser, of course. Or at least that’s what Panic’s Neven Mrgan has done. And now, you can experience yourself. With Pixelfari.
Now the folks at Portland-based Panic are known as a pretty creative bunch, churning out awesome Mac software that both delights and amazes folks on a regular basis. But when you have the opportunity do all that good work during your day job, what’s one to do with free time?
Make an 8-bit version of the Safari Web browser, of course. Or at least that’s what Panic’s Neven Mrgan has done. With Pixelfari. Read More
No, you won’t, silly imaginary person. You see, it’s not an app. pdx.fm is a Web page that uses Quicktime to deliver the content to iPhones.
When I wrote about pdx.fm launching an Internet radio station, I got a lot of people who were excited about the concept. And then, a quizzical look would cross their face and they’d scrunch up their brow and ask, “It sounds like a good idea and I love the content. But how the heck am I supposed to listen to that in the car?”
Okay. Actually nobody said that. I just made it up. People said the first two things, just not the whole “in the car” thing. It’s a literary device. I was trying to make a point.
What’s that? Oh right. The point. The point being that if there were people who had said something like that—and honestly there should have been—I would now be able to answer them with this.
“If you’ve got an iPhone,” I’d say. “You can use pdx.fm mobile.” Read More
Portland-based toonlet, the only Silicon Forest based service I’ve found that holds the promise of turning you into the next Jim Davis Scott Adams Matt Groening, has released a couple of recent updates that have made the joy of creating toonlets more, well, joyful.
Much like Bruce Banner gaining superpowers after being accidentally irradiated, the toonlet team has discovered that a series of recent Safari-focused improvements have imbued toonlet with superpowers of its own. And you reap the benefit.
So—wait—maybe it’s you that has the superpowers and toonlet is more like the radiation giving you those powers?
I don’t know. My analogy kind of fell apart there.
Anyway. Suffice it to say that, thanks to these Safari improvements on toonlet, you gain the ability to create, compose, and edit toonlets from your Apple iPhone (or someone else’s iPhone if you wish).
In fact, I created the toonlet below from my iPhone. (Yes, I agree. It’s unfortunate that they have yet to fix the “lacking humor” problem. Baby steps.)
http://toonlet.com/embed/strip?i=9156
Second, and easily more important, toonlet has added an “edit” feature for its strips. So now, when you make typos, pick the wrong character, or write something unfunny… Not that that happens to you. I mean, you’re always funny. But if someone less talented than you were to make that sort of mistake, now they can go back and make the toonlet better.
As always, toonlet remains the conversational comic strip service, allowing you to comment on other’s toonlets with toonlets of your own. So please, by all means, head on over and tell me how unfunny that strip above is by creating your own toonlet.