Professionally speaking, the period of August & September last year was very tough, the precise coals of which I won’t rake over here. One of the knock-on effects of this was - aside from listening to Johhny Cash’s “Hurt” on permaplay for about three weeks solid - I felt a sense or obligation to respect - and possibly even embrace - the grave nature of the circumstances. It completely choked any creative output on this blog.
One of the few creative ideas I had during this time, and which was promptly banned from being posted on the grounds of being too upbeat, was this…
Quite simply, it was some wallpaper that I designed to look like a blank wall of a museum or art gallery. It was meant to be used in conjunction with Yahoo!’s Widget Engine (formerly Konfabulator) and the Picture Frame widget which displays either your own photographs or a feed of other people’s shots from Flickr! - the shots cycle or rotate at a frequency of your own choosing.
The desired effect I sought was to enable you to present your photographs in the rather unlikely, simulated context of an art gallery. I created a handful of different variations and briefly wondered how easy it would be (for a community effort) to create a variety of blank walls from various actual art galleries around the world - the one I made was based upon the MoMa in New York.
But it was binned as an idea and forgotten about. Until this week when I found Museumr (which appears to have been launched right at the same time I had my brainwave) and I had a simultaneous sense of satisfaction and regret.
It’s not exactly the same idea - mine’s a background desktop wallpaper / widget implementation of it - but it’s bloody close enough. That’ll teach me to listen to Johhny Cash.
Instructions for use : set your chosen gallery wall as your desktop wallpaper, install the Yahoo! Widget engine (Window & Mac versions available), enable the Picture Frame widget and point to either your won photos or take the Flickr! widget and you’re done. Helps if you have a clear desktop too.
One of the few creative ideas I had during this time, and which was promptly banned from being posted on the grounds of being too upbeat, was this…
Quite simply, it was some wallpaper that I designed to look like a blank wall of a museum or art gallery. It was meant to be used in conjunction with Yahoo!’s Widget Engine (formerly Konfabulator) and the Picture Frame widget which displays either your own photographs or a feed of other people’s shots from Flickr! - the shots cycle or rotate at a frequency of your own choosing.
The desired effect I sought was to enable you to present your photographs in the rather unlikely, simulated context of an art gallery. I created a handful of different variations and briefly wondered how easy it would be (for a community effort) to create a variety of blank walls from various actual art galleries around the world - the one I made was based upon the MoMa in New York.
But it was binned as an idea and forgotten about. Until this week when I found Museumr (which appears to have been launched right at the same time I had my brainwave) and I had a simultaneous sense of satisfaction and regret.
It’s not exactly the same idea - mine’s a background desktop wallpaper / widget implementation of it - but it’s bloody close enough. That’ll teach me to listen to Johhny Cash.
Instructions for use : set your chosen gallery wall as your desktop wallpaper, install the Yahoo! Widget engine (Window & Mac versions available), enable the Picture Frame widget and point to either your won photos or take the Flickr! widget and you’re done. Helps if you have a clear desktop too.