Iodinated seafood party together ignoring the scale

It’s half past three in the morning and I write this post while the book about use of iodized salt in bakery is printed. Infographics and tables I wrote about couple of weeks ago (Infographics Howto: Iodide! Iodate!) were used on the pages of this book. Some of them changed a bit, others changed a lot after discussions and specifications of charts targeting. Furthermore there happened to be two books not one as it was expected at the beginning. The second one is thinner about use of iodized salt in Denmark. I’ll write about changed charts at first and then I’ll describe the books makeup process.

Infographics

Some graphs wished to stay on certain places on the pages of the book so it would be easier to read them. Other graphs were disturbed with the fact they can visualize more information they visualized in the prior editions. More graphs just wanted to be even more handsome.

Culinary treatment impact on iodine contents in seafood (Fig. 1, page 8)

Usage of iodinated additives to impact iodine concentration in bakery (Fig. 2, page 23)

Captions on this graph were moved below so they won’t mess with the figure caption.

Impact of iodized salts on dough smearing (Fig. 3, page 30)

The long way I made selecting and composing the appearance of bars ended with simple solution. Though it looks obvious all prior steps were needed not just for this graph but also for other charts with bars in this books, including the first one described above.

Impact of iodized salts on gasification ability of the flour (Fig. 4, page 31)

As long as numbers are too close that would be to impossible with just scaling them to feet the page width. That’s why the bars have the parallel similar parts withdrawn so the difference is shown zoomed in. The skipped parts are properly marked.

Growth of the diameter with the lapse of time (Fig. 6, page 33; Fig. 7, page. 34; Fig. 9, page 36)

All three charts visualizing the growth of the diameters of colonies and mycelium with the lapse of time changed too. They now look less avant-garde while colour coding and captions are now more readable and obvious. I would send the prior edition to biennale while letting the second to find its mission in book.

Layout

Finished book in Russian is available for download in PDF (1,5 Mb). It is also available in miniature:

I start with the statement I was in a horrible rush and even though I tried my best to work on every line I’ve must have skipped something. I understand it’s not ok but I’ll try to live with that. I was in a lack of about a week and about a box of Portuguese vino verde ;)

I have a thing and a pony who helped me. Pony is bo, who edited the whole text way more readable than it was in source. The book is ‘Manual for Publisher and Author’ by Milchin and Chelcova.

Everything started with the grid which was then implemented in second book too.

Grid is flexible enough to work for one and two column layout (mouse over spreads to see the grid for them)

Grid works for one column layout with wide external margin and two column layout with equal margins. Two column layout is used particularly for appendix which is the separate document to show it is not part of the book text while it is part of the whole book.

Graphs and tables in both layouts are wider than text part. That makes reading more dynamic and pleasant. They are also placed after the text they illustrate to make reading more straightforward and one-directional.

Some tables were rotated 90° to make them more readable. The contents of table cells was aligned the way it would be easier to compare the data.

(Table 3, page 27)

I removed some obvious column headings to minimize redundant information.

There seemed to be a problem when I started working with appendix. As appendix is a separate document it has the separate page numbering. I spent and hour and a half to force Indesign to make it automatically but hand to place page numbers by hand ;) Appendix page numbering is placed on top of every page aligned to external edge.

Hint for Mac OS X users: you can use default application called Grapher (Applications › Utilities) to format mathematical formulas. After the formula is edited in Grapher copy it to the clipboard and paste as PDF to any application that supports that.

After I was to tired to even look at the book I made I started the creation of table of contents. As I worked with Indesign styles it was easy to compose TOC in couple of clicks but I wanted to use the whole spread and make something more creative.

I finished with way more traditional TOC so readers won’t be distracted starting from the third page.

The same decoration was used for appendix table of contents.

‘Dutch’ Book

This book in Ukrainian is also available for download (PDF, 706 Kb) and can be the fist for the eyes in miniature

The main problem with this book was insufficient number of pages that’s why one column is stretched on two column width. The tables don’t hang wasn’t so expressive but still dynamic.

Though the tables were more readable then in first book I still had to edit them.

(Table 3, page 10)

I united age groups with colour, made the left column more readable and changed the header so the table was easier to use.

It was a pity I had no source of the chart so I had to work with what I’ve got. To place make it more appealing and fit it into the layout.

(Chart 1, page 11)

I retrieved chart from PDF, made bars width equal and added marks on the left so the reader could estimate data concentration.

(Table 4, page 11)

One more long table was separated in two columns and it’s subheading was contrasted. Changes made table more readable and thus easy to use.

***

I saved all the fils, sent them to publisher and didn’t look at them for a couple of days. And now, when I am not sick looking at them, at three thirty in the morning I finalized the story of book creation. Pretty, usable and readable book made out of not so clear for the reader sources.

Iodine Makes Me Clever tshirt print (dribbbbbbbble edition)

It looks like I am absolutely out of time and won’t be able to translate this post into english for a long time. So let’s consider pictures really worth a thousand words and enjoy the examples of the charts and graphs I made for the book about use of iodized salt in bakery.

(Info)graphics

I made a long way searching for the visualization of dough smearing

I had to rotate almost every table in the book 90° so it would be readable. People who made them didn’t understand how data in cells is compared.

***

The tables and charts are in Russian and there is almost no text but don’t get sad, post in English about how the whole book was is here:

Iodide! Iodate! — 2
Data Visualization on Stream and Books Layout Explained

I didn’t post to blog like for ages. Now I am back, at least I hope that my drafts won’t grow mouldy and I’ll finish them. What’s the best way to tell your brain to start working? Make something interesting and resource-intensive. So we (me and akella) did it — 24 hours project. It took us 33 hours to finish. When it was 26th hour we started to notice that it takes more than two dozens of hours, on the hour 30 we understood that we are a bit late. Anyway, we finished and one of us went to have some meal and another started writing the blog post, fell asleep right in front of his display and pushed a ‘Publish’ button just now ;)

Project Idea

The idea is sweet and neat — to give the ability to read books on iPhone without installation of any additional software. I loved this idea because I love simple and interesting things and akella was fond of it because he couldn’t install any application on his locked to AT&T iPhone which was hardware unlocked. As the process doesn’t include the installation from AppStore or Cydia we should create HTML-application. I forgot the correct name Apple calls them.

Project Design

The first groundwork was made almost half a year ago and it was something like iBooks we can see now. As I joined the process I came up with idea of ‘separate book — separate icon’ and separate application. So the library is stored online and you can use any book you want even downloading it for offline use. Besides using the trendy idea of storing everything you don’t need somewhere and the things you need on your device this approach makes reading book really about reading — nothing redundant, just you and the book. The negative side was that it wasn’t very convenient for storing more than two or three books. We accepted it once more understanding that all books are stored online and ready to be downloaded. The folders in iOS 4 proved we were not so wrong and up to dozen books now can be organized in one nice icon.

The whole application and its work can be separated on two phases. Phase 1: choosing or creating book to read and adding it to iPhone Home Screen. Phase 2: Reading the book even if the iPhone isn’t connected to the internet.

Supported formats so far are .html and .fb2 but we are working on compatibility with others.

Project GUI

Pictures finally ;) You could check the live version and compare it with the sketches but now it’s down. We’ll resume it shortly!

Everything started with application icon in different sizes because I had a hope that there is a way to make different apple touch icons for different devices. There isn’t.

The first thing user sees starting the project site is the interface to find a book in catalog and browse it or to create the book of existing .html or .fb2 file. Search results and catalogue of all books look almost the same but catalogue provides the ability to filter books by genre.

Then we moved to the screen sketches. After the user have chosen the book it starts loading. User can start reading it already. When it’s loaded the hint describing how to save the book appears. The arrow shaped background points right on the plus icon in the bottom toolbar of iOS Safari.

After the book is added to Home Screen, book icon appears there. This is the end of Phase 1.

Next time user taps the icon he sees the loading screen (takes couple of seconds to load a normal book on iPhone 4 and a bit longer on iPhone 3GS). And after the book is loaded user can read it. It automatically remembers last read place and scrolls to it.

That’s it. So easy, so cool!

There is a special version (differs a bit now) for those, who didn’t use iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to access the site.

Fun Facts

• The GUI is 100% made in vector graphics editor
• All icons and our logos are used on site/in application in vector using SVG
• All graphical elements, except icons and arrow shaped background, are 100% CSS. Yes! These gradients, shadows and backgrounds are not pictures!
• Apple Touch Icon in iOS 4.0 looks crappy and blurry and there is no way to fix it except updating to iOS 4.1
• All fonts used are default in iPhones, iPods and iPads
• Thanks to all that stuff application looks the same on iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod Touches. We are waiting for the iPad test results ;)

How everything looks on iPhone 4 (bigger) and iPhone screens. Almost the same ;)

Oh, as to the backstage, there were lotsa things one of them is different ideas about organizing the book download process:

tl;dr

Surf to project site (will be resumed shortly) with your iDevice to save books right to your Home Screen and read them later. No additional software needed. Formats supported are .html and .fb2. We luv ya!

I caught one post in the sea of the drafts I have here. There are 10s of them. Anyway, I’ve chosen one and publish it today because this morning twitter is overfilled with messages like “I want to sleep”. I don’t have a problem waking up with a smile (I don’t use don’t use alarms, imagine that ;). Anyway I sometimes think it’s wrong to get up early. But let’s get back to the topic. Below is the remastered version of text comics I’ve sent to bo one morning.

This strip can also be considered a Friday tribute to Friday 4Koma which I like a lot.

Adobe presented it’s new Creative Suite 5 in Kiev. I visited Adobe’s master classes for InDesign earlier, so I was eager to visit this one too. The presented material is fully covered by Creative Suites 5 descriptions on Adobe’s site so I’ll just say thanks to Markus Bledowski (Adobe evangelist) and Russell Viers and list youtube videos describing features I like most and post brief comments. Jokes and quotes are there at the bottom of the post!

Photoshop

Illustrator

InDesign

Post Production applications

I am not post production professional but thanks to Markus I was quite interested. First it was demonstrated to us how Adobe soft helped with Avatar. Then Markus has shown us how Adobe Premier Pro associates monologues from script with video using voice recognition (first useful use of technology, isn’t it?). After that he transcoded that video to DVD and Flash using Encore.

The final part was recreating a bit of famous Samsung 3D TV commercial using After Effects.

Markus made something rough but similar to the effects shown

All post production applications use the same cache on HDD so the data is updated automatically with every change if you work with the same file.

Interactive

Adobe goes on separating developers and coders in Flash more and more. Now there is Flash Catalyst so designers could design their interfaces without writing a line of code. And there is InDesign with new features for interactive medias that help to create interactive version of print magazine made in InDesign in just, dunno, and hour or two!

Now I see why Adobe was so angry with Apple’s deny to support flash and flash-generated applications on iPad. By the way, the generated swf is very intelligent — it stores all linked files in separate folder not in the swf file.

Wired uses Adobe Creative Suite to become more interactive. Though no way to use it on iPad

Dreamweaver was nothing interesting to me.

Interesting Facts

You can import 3d file to Photoshop, save it as psd and use it in other Adobe Applications as 3d model. It’s called Live Photoshop 3D.

Mini Bridge in all CS5 applications looks like enhanced open dialog. I think I’ll use it.

Adobe goes online more and more offering paid services. In InDesign CS5 you can publish your project right to acrobat.com and send link to it to everyone involved. They can leave comments viewing your work right there and you’ll get them right into InDesign GUI. Sounds like… fun?

Now you can name and change positions of art boards in Illustrator.

CS5 applications’ GUI and UX is more uniform now but there are flex-like GUI elements here or there especially in the “online” parts of interface.

Icons and splash screens have changed a lot and became more crazy (it’s not so hard to be more crazy then rectangle with a gradient, right?). Shawn Cheris told about the changes in two parts: one and two.

Jokes and Quotes

Russell Viers

— What’s your name?
— Volodymyr.
— Wha… Lah… Can I call you Bill?

I prompted adobe to place ad in dialogs with progress bars. That way they could earn money to make soft free for us.

Markus Bledowski

We don’t have problems — we have challenges!

Don’t ask if it’s possible. Ask how it’s possible.

Client comes and says he wants to recolor car in the video. Which color? He doesn’t know. Surprise me! Okay, that means pink. Then he asks the same color but different tone. That means green.

Roman Menyakin

While doing some complex task.
Roman: Adobe-kadabra!
Russel: Pow!

***

I’m quite sure my post doesn’t cover everything told on the master classes and presentation but Adobe doesn’t film or record in anyway its events and there no wifi so I could spam twitter with my emotions. Anyway, everything was quite interesting! And pen with notebook with Adobe’s logos are now living in my bag and magnet with I ♥ Adobe on it is laying sad — I don’t actually like them. So if anyone wants to have such stylish magnet on his or her fridge — just tell me.

I couldn’t make my IXUS picture it right, sorry. Here it is — the blurred magnet ;)

At last and not connected to the post topic I want to greet my friend Yura (akella). He’s 14 or 35 or something like that today!

It was a 5-years-long waiting for MINI to hear my thoughts (as they did in c1rca) and make the Cooper I’d buy. Not just buy but also adore, love, respect, be proud of and drive like I’m riding a dream. Here it is — coming soon MINI Cooper Countryman. Besides it’s new design and perfect body it has normal amount of doors. MINI fans can blame me I don’t feel the spirit, banish Countryman out of Cooper family — I don’t care. I just want to ride this perfect six-speed manual gear box beauty!

Just because it’s MINI, the ads are wonderful. I’ll spoil the joy a bit offering you to watch Countryman ad prior to teaser of that car.

As MRNCH said: I’m happy to see car ad that doesn’t say ‘Your car — your road’

And here’s MINI Countryman teaser. Pay attention to the camouflage that is usually used to hide specific details of new models from papparazi. Now it’s a part of a new promotion:

***

Those who consider Countryman is not MINI can enjoy my photo of old marvelous MINI taken in Rome:

I love to cook and dislike using prewritten recipes. Even if I read the recipe I do the dish my own way and it always tastes better ;) I’ve made a salad that I called “Prawn the Queen” recently. It isn’t just tasty but it looks pretty. So I present you the recipe and infographic of this salad. Let’s file it under hightech ;)

Recipe

5 slices of carambola (starfruit) about 4 mm thick

5 prawns

5 leaves of Crisphead salad

30 gr of mayonnaise

30 gr of olive oil

Tear the salad leaves in tasty-sized pieces, add starfruit slices there (you have to cut slices on two halves so they look like little crowns — six-pointed starfruits suit better). Then boil the prawns, remove their armor and add to the salad and carambola. You can buy precooked prawns so you’ll have just to unfrozen them. Mix mayonnaise with olive oil and pour on ingredients. Mix the salad again and enjoy! This is salad for one.

It was 1994 and I got a thing that is wannabe for 10 years old master of the universe as my birthday present — 5¼” floppy discs drive. It was equipped with adapter that allowed to plug it to computer. Oh, that was a computer that I used to rule assembler and basic worlds. The computer that couldn’t start Turbo Pascal just because it didn’t have 16 colors to represent GUI. There were just white, cyan, magenta and black in one mode and you could switch to more warm palette where you had yellow, green, red and black again. You couldn’t combine palettes, but that didn’t seem to be the problem and the games were interesting and breathtaking. And after I got a 5″ drive I could start them from the floppies not from the cassettes that made me quite happy. One of the games that made me listen to the cawing of the drive was Thexder (テグザー). The robot — main hero of the game — that was running through mazes and could transform to a jet made me miss quite a lot homework.

Besides transformation zest of the game was that you spent your life energy to fire lasers or turn on protective shield. To get more life energy you had to shoot hamburger-like flying objects. You had to run, jump, evade and fly.

Those who had more advanced computers then I had could enjoy better graphics

Today, 15 years later I can’t cut my algebra or English homework but I can fail a deadline which I almost did. Thexder Neo — PSP remake of classic Thexder is out and it was installed on my PSP the day before yesterday. I never knew rest until I finished the game three times in a row on the normal (maximum actually) level. I must’ve looked like the most joyous idiot on Earth!

The same part of the first level is shown on this and previous screenshots

It’s easy to notice that the game changed, graphic was made more up to date, but the levels remained almost the same! I finished first level with my eyes almost shut, dodging, firing and transforming by intuition! The changes affected not just visual part (it’s easier on PSP) — new online game mode is now available. I can’t use it because the hours spent on becoming friends with Playstation Network were waste of time.

Game logo was changed too. It lost the spirit

Square Enix somehow managed to save the gameplay. Compare old a new versions to get added evidence that it’s true:

Thexder

Thexder Neo trailer

***

It’s obvious that Thexder Neo release is made for fans like me who feel nostalgic for old computer games. The unobvious thing is why they skipped “Turn graphic mode like when you were child” option. I highly doubt it was hard to do.

I’m happy to see that the end of the first decade of the third millennium there are still people who create 2d scrollers that I miss so much and can enjoy once in a blue moon.

It’s almost a year since I’ve visited Portugal. I can’t forget this country and want to come back to comfy streets of Lisbon, feel +20 °C in December, walk by bank and finally buy that t-shirt with tram #28 on it. I didn’t think that I want it so much until Tonya Shoo asked me in facebook: “Hello! I’ve noticed you’ve been to Lisbon. We are going there too, would you please recommend anything?… I’ve already read about Vino Verde.” I wanted to write something brief and clear, but tough luck ;)

My answer

Hello ;)

I’d recommend to visit Sintra — just 50 km away from Libon on very comfortable train and you’re in a marvelous dream-city. It’s very cosy there.

Sintra Royal Palace. This photo at flickr

I could even recommend where to dine but hard it very hard to lead you to the certain place. When you’ll go to (or from) the castle on the top of the mountain, ask the bus driver to stop right before botanical garden exit. If you enter the botanical garden using the wrong entrance, you can’t understand where you are. I’ve got mystical experience with that. Really! We didn’t understand where we were while modern art (sculptures and installations) with everything muffled up with fog and almost transparent local who passed by with axe completely ignoring us made us believe that it’s not the reality we used to live in but something magical!

We lived in the center of Lisbon near the Rossio square. We explored every street there — steep, incredible and captivating.

Bigger at Google Maps

We took photos of ornaments on all the houses. Pay attention to them. Then one night on square, right to Mundial hotel (it must be from behind) take a ride with tram #28 — rad! It goes all over the city center.

There is also a museum of the city in the center of Lisbon. It is told about how they rehabilitated the city after the earthquakes. I was amazed how considered where their plans centuries ago. They thought of everything and due to that traffic jam in the center of Lisbon is uncommon.

Street in the center of Lisbon. This photo on flickr

When you’ll take a walk at the evening visit the center (we lived in Baixa and I liked it). Buy a bottle of vino verde for 1 or 2 € (don’t chose the expensive and decorated — the cheaper, the more local), dozen of roasted chestnuts and roam about the streets. You’ll meet fado singer for sure. So you’ll stay, drink wine, eat chestnuts and listen to the city romances and suddenly you fill like time stopped, everyone is a magician and the love is in the air ;)

This photo on flickr

Oh! I almost forgot! Visit oceanarium. It is on Vasco da Gamma subway station.

This photo on flickr

Go by subway and become impressed by the station as soon as you arrive. It’s subway on level 0, then there are buses and trains on top. Almost next to oceanarium there is the Europe longest (if I am not mistaken) bridge.

Photo on flickr

You can eat not just in restaurants but in every street bistro — it’s cheap and tasty. Don’t forget to thank for everything, Portuguese like that a lot. Thank you is obrigado.

Everyday Baixa. This photo on flickr

I advised nothing special in general. I prefer to roaming about the cities, feel their spirit, list Daft Punk, sitting on the road bricks instead of visiting places of interest, so I am not good adviser.

This photo on flickr

***

Lisbon is one of the cities I’d like to live in. There are a few of them ;)