Interesting insight into how the new BBC iPlayer was redesigned and built, including a discussion with the lead creative and technical teams, as well as a quick overview of the new social-networking elements they’ve added.

You can jump straight to the beta version and make a quick comparison with the original. For me the stand-out difference is how much cleaner and more focussed the interface has become, with a logical layout and a cluster of straight-talking menus. I do think they could have gone further with the social-networking aspects of the site, maybe taking a leaf out of Joost’s book and incorporating whose online, what they’ve watched and enjoyed all from within the site and not just a link via twitter; however, I think it’s great that they’ve released this kind of video and shared with us the decisions behind the changes and I’d love to see more.

Working on a Mac I’ve had some great choices to choose from when considering which editor to code my sites in. Panic’s Coda, Macrabits Espresso, BBEdit, and my tool of choice Textmate. Now I didn’t arrive easily to this choice, in fact I swayed back-and-forth between Coda and Espresso for a while thinking each one did something the other missed. It was only when I was playing around with Ruby-on-Rails that I really gave it a go. And what was it that got me hooked? I think probably the power of the bundle engine, the ability to collapse lines of code, and the Railscast theme. The first is the real gem though, and is probably what isn’t immediately obvious when taking it for a test-drive. If your interested, there’s a video or two and a book that’ll really help get you up to speed and earn back your time.

But as great as it is, I think for web development we could do better. I know recently there’s been some work at trying to get a firebug-type editor that lets you code and save within the browser view, no more cmd + tabbing. And I was thinking you could take this one-step further and have a browser-switcher that would let you switch between an i.e., webkit, gecko, view to see how each responds to the code; it could even include some magic in-builds.

When visiting another country I’ve often found myself revisiting the same companies and TV shows again, but this time with a bit of a spin and a new cast of actors that can make you wonder if your aren’t in some alternative reality. Take McDonalds for example, in Britain it’s where you go for a no-thrills cheap eat, but in Buenos Aires it’s occupants are Tommy-Hillfiger and Calvin Klein eating in one of the most stylish buildings on the street, and paying more than a steak dinner.

And the TV too.

Recently I’ve been getting into Life on Mars a BBC scif-fi police drama, and discovered, while visiting New York, that there had been an American version with Harvey Keitel, then today while in Spain I saw a Spanish version. The plots are the same but with it’s own cultural-twists and expressions that very much like a different language makes you rethink the assumptions in your own.

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