It's the first day of summer, so it's time to get some updates done that I've been meaning to add to Grey Matters. It all begins with the Read More... link below, which is itself an update to this site.

With an instructional site, I've always thought screencasts would be a good idea, but it's taken a while for me to find software that met my needs in terms of price and features. For those who are curious, I finaly settled on iShowU HD. Behind the scenes, I've also picked up iWork '09, so you can expect to start seeing some major changes in the tutorials section, once I'm up to speed on these tools.

My first effort was the Timed Quiz Generator tutorial, which turned out well. My newest one, mentioned briefly in the recent iPhone and iPod Amazement post, was the tutorial for the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Werner Miller's Age Square. This is a wonderful mathemagic routine Werner Miller created for Grey Matters last July, after being inspired by my post on how to determine someone's age.

As a matter of fact, Age Square has been updated not only by means of the video tutorial, but also by means of how it is delivered. I've moved it to a new location on the web, for those who wish to try it out. As a bonus, though, I've also posted the whole thing as a .ZIP archive (download link here), so that anyone can get it and load it up to their own server space if they wish. The archive comes not only with the needed files, but also a Read Me file that gives instructions and a link to the instructional video. Anyone can download it and install it, but you'll need either an iPhone, and iPod Touch or a Mac running Safari to view it.

Just because I'm focusing so much on software and video, doesn't mean I've forgotten print. Earlier this week, I just posted the latest update of my Memory Effects list. The last update was on New Year's Day, and so many good effects have come out that it seemed like the list was just begging to be updated. What started as a 2-page file I was keeping for myself has become a 68-page document viewed over 25,000 times, and downloaded roughly 10% of the time!

If you've used the SITE FEEDS and DOWNLOADS accordion menus before, you may notice that they don't look and act like they always have in the past. Instead of the headers changing colors to reflect the selected section, you'll see the focus outline instead. No, your browser is not to blame. I'm in the midst of updating jQuery (the Javascript framework upon which this site is depending more and more) and the jQuery UI to the latest versions, so some minor incompatibility is the source of the problem (so to speak).

Yes, as with any software, they're more powerful than the previous versions, but that's not the only reason I'm upgrading the software in the background. You see, there's more update that is largely pushing me to update the software that powers it. However, this last update isn't quite complete, so I'm saving it as a surprise. Trust me, when it happens, you will notice it.