Interior Design

I’m looking for Interior Design magazines, what are some free subscriptions?

I am looking for Interior Design and Sustainable (Green) Design for commercial spaces, I want to know if there are free magazines I can subscribe to

Kobi Karp Architecture Interior Design – St-Tropez

The Apple Ipad – A New Category Of Device For The Semantic Age

On Wednesday Apple introduced the iPad – a 9.7 inch multi-touch device that bridges the gap between computers and smart phones.  They have priced it very aggressively  with the basic 16gb Wi-Fi model starting at $499 and the 64GB 3G model topping out at $829.

As technology becomes increasingly pervasive in all our lives we need to be able to interact with it more efficiently.  Computers are okay when you’re at your desk, but there’s so many times when you need to access the web where turning on your computer is too time consuming and your smart phone interface is too fiddly to use (yes even on the iPhone).

What is the semantic web?

The web we know today is designed for humans. We can efficiently navigate between 1000s of databases and accomplish tasks that would have been really time consuming only a few years ago, but these databases are not designed for machines so we often find ourselves have to struggle to interact with many systems to achieve what are, in principle, simple tasks.

Let’s look at an example.

The iPad on the move in the semantic age

In semantic age I might use my iPad as a GPS device in my car.

I jump in my car at 10am and select my destination from my address book, it’s a 4-hour journey so the iPad asks if I want to stop for lunch on the way. I choose a time and place that will be a nearby at 1pm and we set off.

As I set off it queries the database at trafficmaster.co.uk to check for any areas that are moving slower than unusual and picks the best route based on the time of day I am travelling.

To keep me entertained, it chooses some music for me using my last.fm profile: cross referencing the time of day with the kind of music I typically play.

It already knows how much fuel I have in my car because every time I fill up it makes a note of how far I travelled since the last stop and it checks my credit card statement to see how much fuel I put in. Looks like I don’t have enough fuel to get where I’m going so it asks petrolprices.com  where it can find the cheapest petrol on-route taking into account the cost of the detour – it just saved me eight quid by taking me on a ten-minute diversion.

As I cross into the congestion charging zone my it pays my fees for me right away – no sense waiting: it doesn’t get any cheaper.

I arrive at my destination effortlessly and pull into the nearby council car park. After stopping for a few seconds it asks if I would like to pay for parking and how long I plan to stay. My account is debited and Boris is happy.

And just for good measure, my iPad noticed that one of my friends, whom I haven’t seen for a while, is also in town today; so we exchanged emails and meet up for a coffee.

So with just a score-or-fewer taps on my iPad I have completed an array of database interactions that would take me the best part of an hour to achieve using today’s technology.All of these things are possible using current devices (an iPhone or another GPS enabled smart phone) but the human has to do all the heavy lifting. As the web evolves all these systems will be able to talk to one another and we will be free to sit back and enjoy ride.

More little tasks for us

Technology is providing us with an ever-increasing array of systems to make things “easier”. But it all adds up to more and more little tasks for us to do. More things I can’t be bothered to turn my computer on for.

The iPad is a great advance in human-machine interfacing. It’s a natural way to accomplish all these little tasks with a lot less effort, with a device you can have to hand and that is already sitting in standby mode waiting.

What the iPad is

The iPad does everything most people do on their computers every day. The “average user” doesn’t need vast amounts of storage or processing power, they just want to browse the web, watch a movie and send a few emails. If Apple are to be believed the iPad does all these things better than a computer. And let’s face it – the interface of the modern computer has only had one major evolution in 50 years – the addition of a mouse wheel.

The iPad doesn’t do anything new – like the iPhone it does everything people really want but better. If you have used the multi-touch track pad on the latest MacBooks you will already have an insight into how slick this thing is going to be.

People will tell you that you can get all this in other devices with higher specs and lower prices – but that doesn’t mean a thing. I bought a MacBook Air – the lowest specced and highest priced laptop on the market – because it did exactly what I needed perfectly, millions of people have chosen the iPhone over more powerful devices for the same reason.

What’s missing?

I can image a device like this would be perfect for iChat video calls with the family that you can make casually wherever you find yourself instead of sat in front of a desktop computer. A device like that would finally bring video calls into the mainstream.

But I guess they have to save something to make people upgrade in 18 months time.

Giving your place Sense of Space

Giving your place Sense of Space
Business coordinates remodeling jobs at homes and offices.

Read more on The Record and Herald News

Discord’s Apple

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Discord’s Apple

Ying Li cut to Hold by Kim Eng; $0.43 target

Ying Li cut to Hold by Kim Eng; $0.43 target
Kim Eng Securities downgrades Ying Li International (5DM.SG) to Hold from Buy, cuts target price to $0.43 from $0.62, pegged at 40% discount to RNAV estimate, says Dow Jones. Changes based on lower rental, average selling price assumptions for China-based property developer. Says delay in launch of residential component of Ying Li’s Da Ping project to end-2011 from end-2010, due to design …

Read more on The Edge Singapore

Tacky + Time = Treasure

Image taken on 2008-05-25 13:53:40 by KennethMoyle.

Apple won’t change antenna for Verizon iPhone, says expert

Apple won’t change antenna for Verizon iPhone, says expert
If an iPhone does appear on Verizon, don’t expect Apple to change its antenna design, an expert said today.

Read more on CIO

Cuffu Blue Heart IPod Nano 4 / 4G With Only One LOWEST Shipping Rate $2.98 – Goes With Everyday Style and Apparel

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Being Prepared for Fire: Dwelling Insurance

There are few disasters as intimidating as fire. Dwelling insurance can never make a fire any less deadly, but it can ensure that a financial recovery is fast and convenient. There are no mortgage lenders who will lend to you without your having this type of insurance on your home. You’ll also find that the risk you’re taking extends far beyond that posed to your own financial welfare. Fires are often community events. If your home happens to start it all off, expect to be visited with quite a few demands for payment from your neighbors.

Your home needs to be properly protected against fire. Dwelling insurance for homes that are not up to code is generally not available. While insurance companies do take risks as a matter of course, that doesn’t mean that they want to take unreasonable ones. You’ll have to be responsible and make sure that your home as smoke alarms, good wiring and a good heating system. Most often, those two systems will be the cause of a house fire, and some insurance companies may demand information about them before they’ll agree to provide protection to a home.

You will need the broader protection that can help you in case you suffer the other possible consequences of a house fire. Dwelling insurance can provide protection against the damage your house fire may cause to other homes, and this is something you definitely want to have. Particularly in cities, fires can jump from home to home with terrifying speed. Your neighbors stand to lose their homes in your fire, as well, and you should make sure that, not only are you protected from the expenses incurred, but that your neighbors are actually able to recover their losses. Insurance, in a way, is a neighborly thing to have.

You have to be sensible about your homes risk of catching fire. Dweller’s insurance cannot make up for dangerous habits. A great many house fires are caused by owners doing things that, frankly, they should know better than to do. Fire safety information is usually available from insurance companies that provide these policies, and you should take a look at what they have to offer. Fire extinguishers are very inexpensive these days, and this literature will definitely recommend having at least a few of them. These types of habits can avert disaster altogether.