ExpanDrive

This is rich. I got an email today from Facebook, a startup company which has taken $714M in funding and is still losing money, letting me know they intend to spend $9.5M found a non-profit that will “that will identify and fund projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety, and security.”

Facebook is sending you this notice of a proposed class action settlement that may affect your legal rights as a Facebook member who may have used the Beacon program. This summary notice is being sent to you by Court Order so that you may understand your rights and remedies before the Court considers final approval of the proposed settlement on February 26, 2010.

This is not an advertisement or attorney solicitation.

This is not a settlement in which class members file claims to receive compensation. Under the proposed settlement, Facebook will terminate the Beacon program. In addition, Facebook will provide $9.5 million to establish an independent non-profit foundation that will identify and fund projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety, and security.

For full details on the settlement and further instructions on what to do to opt out of, object to, or otherwise comment upon the proposed settlement, please go to http://www.BeaconClassSettlement.com.

I’m not approaching this post with anything other than a high-level observation that a money-losing startup with $714M of funding is investing $9.5M to found a non-profit. I find it hilarious.

Apple’s web browser, Safari, has a feature euphemistically named “Private Browsing…” When enabled, private browsing makes it so that the sites you visit aren’t stored in the browsers history, and cookies from those sites are deleted when “Private Browsing…” is turned off. In short, there’s no record left on your computer of what you’ve done on the web when “Private Browsing…” was enabled. If used judiciously you can be confident when guests borrow your computer and type www.you into the browser location bar, Safari will always suggest the completion tube.com and never porn.com.

In light of the recent news with Tiger Woods, I wonder if there might be demand for a similar feature on the iPhone. Users could, in a password protected configuration panel, flag certain contacts with a special setting. Incoming, outgoing, and missed calls for these contacts would simply not be saved, and text messages would be deleted automatically after they’ve been read. A contact with this setting would look like any other contact that you never called or heard from. Apple could call the feature “Private Calling…”, or maybe they could come up with a better name.

Also, don’t miss the making of.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know Helvetica. It powers your iPhone. It makes your Jon Shea’s underpants. It fills out your wedding registry.

But as a typeface designed for neutrality—used unironically in tax forms and corporate media for decades—Helvetica’s current rebirth as a “hip” marketing tool almost certainly has a shelf life. And with bad tv and so-so cinema leaning heavily on the typeface to establish branding, I’d say we’re already looking at the beginning of the decline.

So what’s the next trend in the world of typograhpy? Take a look up during holiday travel this season and you can’t fail to miss it: the FHWA Series fonts, and the innumerable spin-offs they’ve inspired.

Don’t believe me? How do you think satellite radio monopolist XM is reminding everyone that they’re the future of audio communication?

And if you’re looking for a light, hip web publishing platform that redefines the nature of the blog, here’s the first thing you see:

Even Southwest Airlines, one of the most obvious competitors to the Interstate Highway System, is using the typeface to let travelers know that their bags fly free:

I can’t say why highway fonts are experiencing such a marketing revival. When legibility and quick transfer of information are not a priority, the typefaces are rather homely, with their chopped ascenders and bloated x-heights giving them a stubby, pot-bellied look.

It could be the same instincts of subversion and reinvention among designers that put Hevletica back on the marquee. Or perhaps it’s an attempt to tap America’s nostalgic association of the open road with change, freedom, and adventure.

But whatever the ethos behind it, it’s clear the long-overlooked FHWA style is making a comeback in advertising. If Helvetica is the best way to say “everyone else is doing it”, Highway Gothic is the best way to say “everyone else is doing it wrong.”

I wanted to send a quick update about the Strongspace transition process

First off, I apologize again for the poor communication. You guys deserve much better.

Secondly, we’re still a bit behind schedule. We’ve activated accounts for some users and are opening it up to a much wider audience this next week. Your data is safe and sound and your access to it won’t be going anywhere. The transition will be a fairly simple process – you’ll log into https://www.strongspace.com with your Strongspace v1 credentials and a v2 account will be made for you. You will then be presented with the opportunity to port over your data. If you decide to port your data over, we’ll automatically take a ZFS snapshot of your data on the v1 server – lock out your v1 account so you can’t change it while the transfer is being made and then send a perfect snapshot of the data to the new server. Depending on the size of your account, this will take anywhere between a couple hours or about a day. We’ll email you when its done and you’ll be good to go.

Next week we’ll be letting you know what the pricing structure will be for the new service. Lifetime customers will remain free, non-lifetime customers will pick a plan – which will be significantly better than their original v1 plan and be given a free 30 day trial to see if they want to keep on.

The plans will be divided into 2 tiers – single-user accounts and multi-user accounts. For now, we’re only offering single user accounts. Strongspace v1 had a half-baked implementation of multi-user access which we don’t intend to continue. Strongspace v2 multi-user will be full multi-user both on the web and via SFTP/Expandrive. We’re not quite done with that yet, but it should go into testing soon. When it is complete, v1 customers who moved on to v2 will be granted up to 10 users but still be billed at the single-user pricing.

Thanks for the patience

Today Apple released a new 27″ iMac with impressive specs, a unibody design and an impressive LED backlit display. Somewhat hidden in the announcement is a small but important feature – the DisplayPort connection on the back of the 27″ iMacs operates both as a jack for an external monitor and also as an input for an external computer if you want to use your 27″ iMac as a monitor.

The 27″ iMac [starting at $1699] has the same modern LED screen as Apple’s 24″ LED Cinema Display[$899] – noticably higher quality than Apple’s dated 30″ Cinema display [$1799]. It is of comparable size and weight, nearly the same resolution [2560x1440 vs 2560x1600] – $100 cheaper, and comes with a free Mac – namely a 3Ghz Core2 Duo with 4 Gigs of RAM and a 1TB hard drive in the base configuration.

30″ Cinema display – $1799               27″ iMac – $1699
          

I’ve had Dell’s 3008WFP 30″ monitor [MSRP $1699] sitting on order for a few days now – which I just canceled in favor of Apple’s 27″ LED version, which comes with the free Mac.

We wanted to send a short update giving everyone an update on the transition over to the new Strongspace service. We’re behind schedule getting everyone moved over to the new servers and we apologize. Rest assured your data is safe and sound. We have pushed back the transition horizon so that your current account will stay active until November 14th – at which point your only option will be to transition.

If you haven’t heard from us yet with details on how to transition, you can expect an email in the coming weeks with instructions on how to automatically transfer your account.

http://www.twitter.com/strongspace
http://www.twitter.com/expandrive

Thanks for your support and patience

Photos of a very Martian Sydney at the Big Picture.

According to Yahoo, “AT&T” [sic] is about to release a “MicroCell”. You plug it into your internet connection, and it broadcasts a short range 3G signal that a few phones can use for voice and internet. Basically a wireless router for cell phones.

I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around it. On the one hand, you can fix the dead spot in your basement apartment or get an iPhone in Vermont. That’s really cool. On the other hand, you’re going use your own internet connection to augment AT&T’s shitty network, and you’re going to pay AT&T for the privilege?

You know what would be great? If you could get one without the AT&T. I mean, if the call is going from your phone to your MicroCell and then over your internet, then what is AT&T really bringing to the program?

A Typophile user named miha has done some amazing pixel art that exploits subpixel antialiasing. In his first post he reworked the YouTube favicon from a pink mess into something that looks sharp and legible.

His second post debuts a draft of a completely legible typeface with an x-height of 3 pixels. The picture above (taken from miha’s comment on the post) shows the word “ipsum dolor” at 16× magnification. The original size text, so small you might not notice it, is in the lower right corner.

Subpixel antialiasing is some magic stuff. As he said in his YouTube post “If you want to be suprised: white text on red is not really white, it is purple & yellow! There is no spoon.” I’d love to see a 9× mockup of what it looks like after antialiasing is applied.

(Mac users can open Digital ColorMeter, in Applications -> Utilities, for a quick way to zoom in on the pixel art.)