Here at Kyan we love unobtrusive scripting: scripting that adds on to the top of an existing web page and extends it to add functionality and interaction niceness.

We often use a Javascript library called jQuery to help us add scripting to our sites, and it’s got a nice extension mechanism. Let’s have a look at writing a small jQuery plugin to add a simple piece of functionality to our site: a print link after a news story.

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It seems even the big boys of I.T. don’t have their sites completely foolproofed.

For some reason (either malice or incompetence) the Cisco homepage today had all of its lowercase ‘t’s removed from the source (although strangely, the uppercase ‘T’s stayed behind)

While this could be a worry for Kyan’s resident tea-lovers, obviously a bigger problem for Cisco is finding out why their “syleshees” aren’t loading.

Hopefully they’re using some kind of source control so they can see who was responsible for that change to the most important page on the site

A new site has appeared on the wonderful inter-tubes, brought to us by a web design firm in Minnesota – Rocket 55 – that looks remarkably similar to ours. As designers we all stand on the shoulders of giants, borrowing ideas and concepts, using the same typefaces, colour palettes and some may say that nothing is truly original but there is a line that can be crossed where an idea is no longer reworked but just plain stolen.

I’m pretty sure that this is one of those cases. Without knowing the full facts of the story, the company may not be entirely to blame. They may have sub-contracted the design work to a third party and be completetly unaware of the blatant rip off, but ultimately they are responsible and this doesn’t go un-recognised amongst the community.

What do you think? Genuine synchronicity or steal?

ps. Thanks to everyone who made us aware of this!

Teleport for OS X – £FREE (Donation-ware)

Ok, so i am lucky enough that at work my setup includes a 24” iMac, a secondary monitor to the left of this and my MacBook on the right hand side. Until yesterday i had, not so much struggled (as this implies my life was made considerably more difficult as a result; a bit of an overstatement), but more accurately, put up with leaning over towards the back of my desk whenever i needed to work on my laptop; this always felt like it should have been far less effort than it actually was. I am also aware that the ergonomically conscious of you out there are gasping in horror at this image, but never fear…

As a result, when Phil advised me about a small Preference Pane for OS X called Synergy, my ears pricked up. Synergy is a (multi platform) tool that allows you to control two or more networked machines with a single mouse and keyboard. Problem solved, sounds pretty straight forward right? WRONG! Actually getting Synergy to work on my two (Leapord 10.5.5) machines proved to be a lot harder than I am sure it’s supposed to. I wrestled with Synergy on a approximately three separate occasions before delving into the Google jungle to see if any other similar tools existed.

Not long into my exploration I came across Teleport. Teleport (OS X only) does exactly what Synergy is supposed to, but in my opinion executes it far better and without any of the hassle. As with Synergy, Teleport is a simple Preference Pane with three different tabs for screen alignment, security and options.

IMPORTANT: The instructions below must be completed on each machine you would like to control with your mouse and keyboard, unless indicated otherwise.

1. Download the Teleport preference pane. Download
2. Unzip and double click: teleport.prefPane to install into System Preferences.
3. Inside the new Teleport pane on System Preferences, select “Activate teleport”. ONLY on the machine you would like to connect to, select “Share this Mac”.
4. Accept the invite from the host on the shared machine.
5. Align the new screen accordingly on the host machine.

SIMPLE AS THAT!
You should now be able to freely glide your mouse across multiple screens and thump out text on each of your machines until your fingers go numb.

SELL IT TO ME:
One of the key selling points of Teleport is the fact that you can also sync Paste boards and drag and drop files between machines. Without question, a very helpful tool.

The vindaloo has a special place in the hearts, bellies and minds of us Brits even though it’s origins lie much further afield. It’s historical basis comes to us originally from the Portugese, who fuelled their empire building with casks filled with pork and preserved in vinegar and garlic. “vinha d’alhos” is portugese for garlic wine and has no link to the hindi aloo (potato) that often (mistakenly) gets added.

The Portugese hit Goa’s shores in the early 16th century and it was then that the local indian population added their spices into the mix. The deep redolent flavours of the dish that comes with the fenugreek, cloves and garlic, set-off against the sourness of tamarind pulp & vinegar, enhanced with a knock-out hit of chilli makes it a favourite dish of mine. It is not the machismo of the heat that makes it so special but the mixing of two different continents approach to cuisine – an original culinery mashup that still works four centuries later that makes it a cultural and gastronomic heavyweight.

Vindaloo is more than a dish. Vindaloo is more than macho posturing after the pub. Vindaloo is more than a football chant. Vindaloo is the poster boy of multi-culturalism, it is what it is to be British today, with roots in imperialism & empire, a history of assimilation and adaption, a melting pot of ingredients and techniques.

This post documents my investigations into the ultimate vindaloo recipe. This is v0.1 in that journey.

Serves 8

Sauce Ingredients

• Red onions x 4
• Garlic (4 cloves)
• Ginger (5cm piece)
• Kashmiri chillis x 3
• Turmeric (2 tsp)
• Cardamon (8 pods)
• Cumin seeds ground (1 tsp)
• Coriander seeds ground (1 tsp)
• Mustard seeds (2 tsp)
• Cloves (8 cloves)
• Black peppercorns ground (1 tsp)
• Fenugreek (1 tsp)
• Red wine vinegar (half a cup)
• Tom puree (big squirt)
• Soft brown sugar (2 tsp)

Other ingredients

• Red onion x 1
• Chicken breasts x 8
• Vegetable oil
• Coriander bunch
• Cup of water

I threw the red onions in the oven with their skins on and roasted for about an hour. Peeled off the rough outer layers and put in a blender with all the other sauce ingredients and blended to a chunky gravy consistency.

Chopped the chicken and spooned over a couple of spoons of the sauce and mix and left to marinate in the fridge overnight.

Finely chopped the red onion and softly fried in a large frying pan with the vegetable oil, added the chicken and cooked until sealed. Added the rest of the sauce and slow cooked with the lid on for an hour.

The verdict: Good, although I think the ginger overplayed its hand and it was a little too sweet. Perhaps needed some more garlic. The heat level was spot on, hot without any
discomfort. I couldn’t find any tamarind in time so missed out on some of the sourness and this probably added to the sweetness.

Next time to use tamarind and find some ghee to replace the vegetable oil.

We decided to have a little fun now that summer is over, combining some design yumminess and behavioural goodness.

See if you are up to the challenge! Can you find the indomitable and mighty web geek PROFESSOR WAKE on our website. He’s hiding there somewhere…

A little clue: quae deorsum sunt quaerite

This year’s d.Construct ‘Designing The Social Web’ took place last week in Brighton and a few of the Kyan crew went along.

Overall the conference was inspiring and the talks were varied and interesting.

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