The New Mac Pro 12 Core Badboy!

Apple have announced their new range of Mac Pros, at the top of their range boasting a whopping 12 Cores of processing power. Apple are calling it the "fastest Mac ever" and it's a Mac so it's going to spank anything else on the market with a similar spec.

Cost up your dream computer and you may need to steady yourself but as a Mac Pro user myself, this is going to be a computer that will last you years before you even have to think about buying another. The Mac Pro is also the easiest computer to upgrade, no need to worry about unplugging something you shouldn't or if it's properly connected, RAM and HDDs just slot right in. It's a beautiful piece of design inside and out.

The new Mac Pro will be available in August, for more info and the full spec visit: apple.com/uk/macpro/

Official Xbox 360 Kinect Price Announced

Microsoft have finally ended months of speculation and announced their new Xbox 360 Kinect controller will retail at £129.99. The package also includes the game 'Kinect Adventures'. A quick look at the online retailers shows the big guns like Game and Amazon are selling Kinect at the full asking price, while Shopto.net appear to be the cheapest at £124.86. For me it's cost prohibitive; I'm sure the controller is amazing but with games offering a similar functionality to Wii ones I never play, I think even the gadget freak in me will need to pass until the eventual, and inevitable, price drop.

Microsoft have also announced a new version of the Xbox 360 Slim console, to replace the existing Arcade pack. The new console sports all the great new features of the updated console but with 4gb of onboard memory instead of a 250gb. For the savvy gamers out there, if you add your own HDD, at £149.99 rrp this could be the console to go for.

For more info on Kinect and the new Xbox 360 visit the official Xbox website.

Katamari For Nottingham

Creator of the Katamari games, Keita Takahashi has been in Nottingham for the past month designing plans for a new play area in Woodthorpe Grange. This is exciting news for Nottingham's families and is the first of its kind in the world. Speaking to the BBC the innovative designer said "I want it to be something no-one has experienced before... I intend to create a design that fits in with the location. I don't want to disturb the trees by cutting them down, so instead, I've included them as part of the fun of the park." He goes on to say "What gives me the most joy is seeing people having fun. [Playgrounds and video games] are both fun things. They actually aren't that different."

To read the full article skip on over to the BBC Nottingham website.

Fridge recycling service in Nottinghamshire

Housing charity Family First have teamed up with Waste company Veola. They are appealing for old fridges to be taken to recycling centres in Nottingham where they will be refurbished and given to needy families. 

WordPress Security Advice

For all the brilliance and ease of use, one area WordPress has suffered is its security. Easily customisable, and in some cases just as hackable, this article could be considered something of a godsend. Split into two parts, the article describes what to do if your WordPress site is hacked and advice on how to protect yourself with a "solid security lockdown".

To view the full article skip on over to the Digging into WordPress website.

BBC Nottingham's Big Night Out 2010

'Big Night Out' always reminds me of the classic Reeves and Mortimer programme, and I'm always disapointed there's no Man with a Stick, Stott brothers, Wheel of Justice, Novelty Island or Les. What there is however is a beach on Old Market Square, live entertainment, music, free or discounted events, guided and historic walks, ice skating and magic, and you can't shake a big stick at that.

The launch is on 28th July 2010 at Nottingham Riviera. For more info visit the BBC website.

CSS Vendor Prefixes

As each browser implements new CSS standards, each publisher interprets these differently. In the past (and present for that matter) designers and coders have been using hacks to hide code from one browser, or to appeal to another directly. CSS3 vendor prefixes will render hacks a thing of the past, as coders will be able to target a browser in the line of code. Later, when browser revisions are released, these prefixes will be dropped in favour of the standard, though the prefixes will remain so we won't have to rewrite our existing code.

For more on this head over to Eric Meyer's article on the A List Apart website, for a thorough and extremely interesting disection of the topic.

Nottingham Innovation Expo 2010

The Nottingham Innovation Expo 2010 is a free event showcasing the ground breaking work being carried out at Nottingham University. The exhibition features new inventions, cutting edge technologies and gives an insight into the research work carried out at this prestigious university.

The event starts on 8th July at 1pm at Nottingham University in the Sir Colin Campbell Building on Jubilee Campus. For more information visit The University of Nottingham website.

Image Creation in CSS and HTML

A really interesting article this. Over at the excellent zeldman.com, Jeffrey Zeldman discusses the use of CSS and HTML to create web graphics without the need for Photoshop or Illustrator. The site links to some quite brilliant examples of graphics created entirely using CSS, check out Louis Harboe's iOS icons and Jeff Batterson's iPhone. Zeldman argues that "no company will ever create “the modern day equivalent of Illustrator and PageMaker for CSS, HTML5 and JavaScript.”" which can only effectively be created by the human hand.

Personally I feel software companies need to adapt to the changes in creating web content, or find that their products are no longer relevant. I'm already reading about a reluctance to upgrade existing software to the latest revisions because of falling confidence in the products available. While some are excellent, others are buggy and contain unusable features put in place it seems only to justify an upgrade. On the other side of the coin, as a designer, I need a visual tool to intuitively transfer my ideas to the screen and feel typing would be at odds to a designers natural way of expression.

It's a great piece and I thoroughly recommend subscribing to Zeldman's feeds. To read the full article visit: zeldman.com

Red Bull Bikers Free Event in Nottingham

For all you Evel Knievel fans, it's a chance to relive the thrill of the wind-up toy motorbike and see the real thing in action at the Red Bull X-Fighters Jam in Nottingham's Old Market Square. Shows run on 2nd July at 5pm and 8pm and is free and open to spectators.

For more info visit the This Is Nottingham website.

More spouting...

Nottingham one of the best places for a night out in the UK

Jamie Oliver - Nottingham Update

E3 - Day 2 Summary