Website of Doom
What is this?
This is the personal homepage of Richard Podsada. My interests include branding, graphic design, website development, cinema, classic motorcycles, and a bunch of other things. My blog contains articles, flash projects, source code, tips, movie reviews, and a lot of ranting. During the day I help businesses build strong brands at nine10 Incorporated, an advertising, branding and website design company in Grande Prairie.
Latest 5 blog posts
My 1978 Honda CB400 TII
June 28th, 2009
The (semi) finished bike
This is the first bike I've ever owned. I was on my way to a fundraising event and saw it in a garage sale on the way. The moment I looked at it, I knew this was going to be my first bike. Funny how that works - I had been thinking about getting a bike for a while before that, and voila, it appears.
The bike was fairly weathered (spent one year outside) and needed some maintenance, but otherwise it was in excellent shape with only 16K on it. Except for the seat cover, all of the original parts were there. The chrome was in great shape and it started up without any problems. It looked like it was dropped once at low speed (or while parked), as there was some damage on the right side. All pretty minor damage - broken choke control, torn rubber boot on the shifter, dent in the front fender - nothing that couldn't be fixed with a few parts and a bit of work.
I bought it in the fall and fixed some of the immediate and easy things on it. Replaced the choke cable, emptied and replaced the gas, plugs, etc. I rode it for that month as-is, basically just learning. This year I spent a lot more time on it cleaning, polishing, fixing and restoring it. I decided against a strict restoration, as this was my first bike and I wanted to have a bit of my own personality in it. I painted it a custom metallic orange instead of the original dark metallic red with stripes. Other than that, I've let it stay pretty true to the original and for the time being, I'm not planning on adding any aftermarket parts or customizations. This way if I wanted to go back to a restoration I basically need a seat and the original paint.
Throughout the process I found that I really, really love riding. I also really love fixing, restoring and working on bikes. I think this is something that I will enjoy a lot of! So I am already on the lookout for my next project... :)
What kind of bike was Joshua Jackson riding in the movie 'One Week'?
June 18th, 2009
I think it's a 1974 Norton Commando 850 MKII. I found a picture of it online and it looks pretty close:
.jpg)
The distinctive trait about his bike is the shape of the seat and how it flows into the rear fender. This style of seat is closer to a sport bike which cups to help keep you forward on the bike. The majority of Commandos that I have seen have the classic 70's style bread-loaf seat, like this 1973 850 Commando:
Both of these are great looking bikes. I love the 70's Nortons. And if I find the old fogey that ran it over in the movie, I am going to kick his ass!!!
The distinctive trait about his bike is the shape of the seat and how it flows into the rear fender. This style of seat is closer to a sport bike which cups to help keep you forward on the bike. The majority of Commandos that I have seen have the classic 70's style bread-loaf seat, like this 1973 850 Commando:
Both of these are great looking bikes. I love the 70's Nortons. And if I find the old fogey that ran it over in the movie, I am going to kick his ass!!!
RealVNC Connection reset by peer (10054)
May 23rd, 2009
Are you trying to connect to a RealVNC Free Edition server on a machine with Vista x64 and getting booted out right after entering your password with the following message?
Screw that, I say! A cheaper and better solution is to get UltraVNC. It's a great open source VNC server with x64 support and has plenty of features and plugins available. Because VNC is based on a standard protocol called RFB, it is compatible with RealVNC, allowing you to use RealVNC viewer on an UltraVNC server or vice versa. The only things that won't work when you do this are the extra plugins and features specific to each program (like file transfers), but everyday remote desktop will work just fine.
You can download UltraVNC from the UltraVNC website.
Connection reset by peer (10054)
The free edition of RealVNC does not support 64-bit operating systems like Vista x64. To get RealVNC server to work on one, you will need to purchase the Enterprise edition of RealVNC.Screw that, I say! A cheaper and better solution is to get UltraVNC. It's a great open source VNC server with x64 support and has plenty of features and plugins available. Because VNC is based on a standard protocol called RFB, it is compatible with RealVNC, allowing you to use RealVNC viewer on an UltraVNC server or vice versa. The only things that won't work when you do this are the extra plugins and features specific to each program (like file transfers), but everyday remote desktop will work just fine.
You can download UltraVNC from the UltraVNC website.
Official Declaration of Turdness
February 26th, 2009
I'm tired of my site design again. I need something to inspire me. Something fresh. And most of all, I need time to do it. Hmmm....
Flash just keeps getting better!
December 27th, 2008
Flash is getting really powerful these days. As much as the Adobe takeover of Macromedia has caused grief in some areas (InterAKT products for instance), it has been a blessing for Flash users.
Every new version of Flash introduced under the Adobe banner has added seriously useful tools and very powerful features to the platform. Features that make you cry out, "Oh my god I need that!!!" or "Thank god, I will never have to <insert long tedious procedure here> again!!!"
In particular, the latest release of Flash CS4 adds the highly anticipated object-based animation tools - a blessing for people who think that animating from the timeline-up is a pain in the ass (myself included.) Animating from the object-down is a much more natural and faster process. Object-based animation lets you focus on the end result and makes quick work of tweaking the path to get there. It's especially awesome for smooth curved motion paths (without all the extra steps required to create a motion path and so on.)
Inverse Kinematics (IK) is also a really interesting addition to Flash... and a god-send to animators! IK is a much more natural way to animate things with moving parts (like people, animals and even machines) and a very welcome addition.
I am definitely going to have to have a good sit-down with Flash again and catch up on the new stuff. And not only the new user-facing features like the ones above, but ActionScript itself has grown leaps and bounds from where it was only a few years ago! One thing I will definitely have to revisit is obedit...
Every new version of Flash introduced under the Adobe banner has added seriously useful tools and very powerful features to the platform. Features that make you cry out, "Oh my god I need that!!!" or "Thank god, I will never have to <insert long tedious procedure here> again!!!"
In particular, the latest release of Flash CS4 adds the highly anticipated object-based animation tools - a blessing for people who think that animating from the timeline-up is a pain in the ass (myself included.) Animating from the object-down is a much more natural and faster process. Object-based animation lets you focus on the end result and makes quick work of tweaking the path to get there. It's especially awesome for smooth curved motion paths (without all the extra steps required to create a motion path and so on.)
Inverse Kinematics (IK) is also a really interesting addition to Flash... and a god-send to animators! IK is a much more natural way to animate things with moving parts (like people, animals and even machines) and a very welcome addition.
I am definitely going to have to have a good sit-down with Flash again and catch up on the new stuff. And not only the new user-facing features like the ones above, but ActionScript itself has grown leaps and bounds from where it was only a few years ago! One thing I will definitely have to revisit is obedit...