Microsoft has announced they will now be starting to auto upgrade Windows customers to the latest version of Internet Explorer available for their PC. Starting January, Microsoft will start forcing costumers to update from older versions of Internet Explorer. If you have Automatic Updates enabled in Windows, the updates of IE will occur in a seamless, Chrome-like experience.

This means that costumers using Windows XP on their PC will be forced to upgrade from IE 6/7 to IE 8. Anyone on Windows Vista and Windows 7 will be forced to upgrade to IE 9.

Microsoft may have just made developers lives a little easier. Eventually this will mean we won’t have to support IE 6/7.

Find out more here.

TextMate is my go to text editor but I’ve noticed an issue with OSX Lion. The odd time TextMate won’t launch from my dock or applications folder.

If you’ve run into this issue, here’s the solution:

Go to your Finder window, choose “Go” then “Go to Folder” in the top menu. Once the “Go to Folder” menu pops up, type “~/Library/Application Support/TextMate” into the text field and hit “Go“. A the application folder for TextMate will appear. Delete the “TextMate.pid” file. TextMate will now open.

ClipMenu is an excellent free application that expands the capabilities of OS X’s default copy and paste to include copy history, as well as snippets.

I’ve found setting up various snippets have saved time when developing. I’ve setup snippets for CSS properties, base HTML, and anything I find I have to keep typing over and over again. I find it can save time and make coding a lot easier.

ClipMenu is available to download free here.

As much as I love OSX, I find that the Finder has always been lacking a bit of functionality. I’ve always felt the Finder has room for improvement. TotalFinder is a perfect solution. The application runs right over the default Finder on OSX without any performance issues. TotalFinder adds features like: Tabbed Browsing, Dual ModeShow, Cut & Paste, Show System Files, and more. Try it out for yourself.

Even though this video is a hilarious take on a Photoshop tutorial, they do highlight some tips for using Photoshop. The video is well done.

Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, preformed last night at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Here’s a short clip of the show.

For the past five years Scotia Bank has held a free all-night celebration of contemporary art called Nuite Blanche.

The fist video had to be one of my favorite exhibits of the year. These animations were projected onto the side of Union Station.

Blue Angel Vodka wanted to know what would happen if five of their favorite directors had the exact same creative brief and budget to make a video showcasing their own unique vision of how to make a BAM aka Blue Angel Martini.

Blue Angel Vodka recently commissioned the internationally known graffiti artist and illustrator, Mike Giant to create this video. The video was directed by Sean Desmond. Animation by Brandon Fink. Original Music by Cambo.

I saw a presentation made by Robert Hodgin a few years ago at FITC Toronto. He had recently created this animation for a contest that Radiohead put on to create your own music video.

This was the music video Robert Hodgin submitted for the contest. This impressive animation was created entirely with Processing.

Last night was the City and Colour concert at the Molson Amphitheatre. Joining City and Colour was Tegan and Sara, Ra Ra Riot, and Wintersleep.