Today, Monday 30th January, is Siân’s Birthday. Thank you all who came for the night out and those we met up with. A good time was enjoyed by all. For this occassion, I am donning my Delia Smith cap and making a nice Lime Sponge cake in honour of this glorious day.
Happy Birthday my love,
Sam
xxx
30.Jan.06 
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This week, Disney announced they were buying Pixar for $7.4 billion. This move will allow Disney and Pixar to produce a higher quantity of computer animated short and feature films, plus gives exclusive ownership to Disney of one of the most successful animation studios in the last ten years.
Ironically though, Steve Jobs, owner of Pixar and CEO of Apple Computer Inc. now becomes the largest shareholder in Disney. As Apple push ever further into supplying digital content, especially video, being the largest shareholder on the board of Disney is going to be very advantageous. Disney already have Miramax, Dimension Films and Buena Vista International in their portfolio of film studios, alongside ABC television and other television networks. Jobs’ new position on the Disney board will certainly raise a few eyebrows over in the Microsoft camp, who are also trying to become the dominant supplier of digital multimedia systems and content.
26.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (0)
Siân is 23 next week (yay) and to celebrate we are throwing a party at our flat in Manchester. This will be the last party in number 12 as we are moving all the way up the stairs to number 18, in the days after the party. Details of the party can be found here.
The plan this year is to go out into Manchester for celebratory drinks and fun, in a particularly swanky but well priced pub/bar (still deciding which), then to drop back into ours to end the night with more drinking and fun and music.
The party starts rolling from 6pm onwards on Saturday, January 28, 2006. That’s THIS WEEKEND folks! So get you train tickets ordered or your cars serviced. If you are coming, all we request is that you bring some drink for the party, plus a sleeping bag if you plan to stay the night - and if you could txt or email us to confirm, we’ll ensure there is enough shower soap 
For directions to us, see the Siân page linked here.
23.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (3)
Tonight, the new Polaris Digital web site went live, debuting the new PDnH CMS system that I have been developing for the last month. The new site’s database is slowly being transfered from my development server along with all the video and images. This process will take another 48 hours, however the site should function normally with information appearing automatically as it is uploaded.
PDnH is currently in pre-alpha. The backend is written and working - as the web site is running. However the first public release of PDnH is expected in April this year. I am still writing the code for the user interface.
The web site should be 100% operational by the weekend, as long as the rebels don’t blow it up before then
12.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (0)
Yesterday, speaking at the Macworld ‘06, Steve Jobs delivered his annual keynote speech to Macintosh fans in the crowd and listening around the world. Up until recently, Apple streamed these events live to the world across the internet. Now, the world audience has to wait up to a full hour before they can participate in the action. I assume the system was changed to cut costs of supporting millions of live streaming connections, especially as probably over 50% of the requests would be for a stream of at least 350Kpbs. However, it also gives Apple the added oppertunity to edit the show, should a problem occur on stage - At least Steve would only have messed up in front of five thousand people, rather than five million.
Steve started by telling the audiance how well retail was doing - and it is doing very well - before moving onto equally how well iPod sales were doing. Then that was it for business updates, onto the action with the Macintosh - this is Macworld afterall. Oh wait, what’s this? Software, iLife, iWork and .Mac have all had major updates… yawn, never would have guessed. I use iLife and iWork all the time. I think they’re both great products. I don’t need to be told for an hour how good they are, especially as they seem to be have increasing synergy with the .Mac service. Never mind, what’s next?
Well, finally hardware came into the agenda and with it Apple’s initial adoption of Intel processors. The first two machines rolling out of Cork (for European customers) will be a new iMac configuration and a brand new MacBook Pro - The ‘Power’ has been dropped now the CPU is no longer a PowerPC - both new machines sporting the new Intel Duo Core processor. These new machines were quite a suprise, much of the internet was awash with rumours that the MacMini and iBooks would be the first to get the Intel treatment. (more…)
11.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (0)
You will notice that the root of my site now has a friendly green ‘Site Closed’ sign. This weekend the new Polaris Digital site is being uploaded and tested. The new Polaris Digital site has been developed over the last month and is the first dynamically driven site to use the new PDnH content management system that I have been writing since late November.
The new site will showcase most of my previous work to date, including the web sites, interactive media, motion graphics, visual effects and of course all the Polaris Digital Pictures releases (eventually).
Please be patient, the new site really is coming now and it will be with you in the next 72 hours!
06.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (0)
The new 2006 Polaris Digital logo
Polaris Digital has presented itself under a number of different badges over the past five years. The most recent logo was probably the most radical change in branding since Polaris Digital first designed its digital style logo in the winter of 2001.
For 2006, Polaris Digital has completely rebranded itself once more, hopefully for the last time in a while. Although it was a hard decision, the ‘circle’ motif that I have encorporated for so long has now gone. Rather than a symbol, we are using colour as our new motif. The distict greens used by the new brand echo the green nature of the new business, located in a very green building in Manchester. You will also notice that this blog has changed its colours from Blue to Green, bringing it inline with the rest of the brand.
But I thought it would be fun to quickly remind you all of the previous logos Polaris Digital has used previously when providing services.
05.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comment (1)
Having had a wonderful Christmas bonus to my iTunes account over the holidays, I decided to go on a virtual browse around my local iTunes store and stumbled across my old friend Mark Thomas and a small selection of his aural offerings. Okay, Mark Thomas isn’t actually a friend of mine in the traditional sense, but I am a huge admirer of his political awareness and how he uses it to generally make the lives of the government and big business a headache - so for that reason I consider him a friend.
I cannot recommend this double album enough. Not since the days of Bill Hicks has a comedian make me roll off my seat in laughter just by listening to the audio rather than watching them on TV. This album was recorded in Edinburgh the night before the bombs began falling on Bagdad in 2003.
It is so refreshing to hear a real voice of definiance to all of the brainwashing propergander that our media is bombarding us with. I will not go into exactly what Mark Thomas talks about that night, you’ll have to purchase the album through a channel of your choice, but you do find out exactly why Mark Thomas cannot travel to the US anymore.
But it is inspirational. A lot of what Mark talks about is our rights as citizens and how the government and ‘big business’ try to intimidate us out of raising our voices and fighting for our rights.
We are providing this direct link to Mark Thomas’ album on iTunes for Mark’s benefit. We acknowledge that there are many excellent music retailers world wide and iTunes is not an exclusive distributer of this product.
04.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (0)
It is the tradition at this time of year to make New Years Resolutions. A bold, and usually fruitless, effort to change one or more unwanted qualities from ones life, from loosing weight to exercising more and of course, give up smoking. Well frankly I don’t believe in New Years Resolutions for the simple fact that changing isn’t as easy as just deciding one day that you’re going to give up what has been until now a major part of your life. Even worse is that most people decide that giving up one habbit is ’so easy’ that they choose to try and give up several of their unwanted traits. Now I’m not saying that everyone setting out on a New Years Resolution campaign is destined to fail, but lets face it, they usaully do.
03.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comment (1)
A big happy new years to everyone! This certainly has been an eventful year for me, a real emotional rollercoaster again. However, I would like to proudly say that at the end of 2005 I am so happy, it feels as though it should be illegal. Luckily it is not, and it is simply the fact that I have spent the year with the loveliest person in the world, Siân. Okay, don’t all barf at once, I know its sentimental. However, it needs to be said.
At the beginning of 2005 I left Colchester for Sheffield, in July of 2005 I left Sheffield for Manchester and now as we enter 2006 I am buying a new place in Manchester, luckily in the Green Building. I started the year getting employed by The Juice Group and ending the year being forced to resign for reasons that defy belief!
So 2006 starts and everything is changing once more. This time though I have a wonderful warm feeling in me and I think this year is going to be wonderful, and more importantly the start of my big adventure into sharing my life with another - something that if you had told me I’d be doing this time last year I would have not believed you.
So to all of our friends and family, new and old, near and far, we haven’t forgotten any of you… Happy New Year to you all!
Sam and Siân
x X x S*
A big thank you to Jo and her housemates for throwing a lovely party on News Years Eve, Kay you are an absolutely brilliant DJ and sorry we couldn’t join you all in Federation, but we had other plans
Kay keeping the party very much alive
Envious eyes
Jo giving some love to the resident DJ
Awwww! (puke puke! )
01.Jan.06 Uncategorized Comments (0)
