September 26, 2009
- Stainless
- Minimalist new browser that seems to fit somewhere outside of Google Chrome and Safari. Supports something they call ‘parallel session’, or the ability to log into the same site with different credentials.
d3ft.com
Recommendations
Archive for 2009
- Mr T graphically explains the Konami Code
- Dan Brown would be proud.
- Konami-JS lets you easily put the Konami Code on your website
- For those of you who don’t know what the code is, it’s:
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. Well, technically it’sEnter, but there’s no Start on my keyboard, so they changed it toEnter.
September 25, 2009
- WordPress jQuery contact form without a plugin
- Trevor Davis creates this contact form using only the WordPress templating system and jQuery.
- Next On…
- Shaun Inman comes up with a lot of nifty, web–related things. He came up with these javascript bookmarklets that add the ability to go to the previous and next posts. Useful if you’re using Safari’s
command + [1-9]key command to quickly move back and forth in website archives.
- Fresh vs. Familiar: How Aggressively to Redesign
- Jakob Nielsen reasoning why it’s best to make gentle changes, rather than go with spaghetti on the wall:
Generally, it’s best to evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design. I thus strongly recommend getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live for several years with minor updates. Before you release anything to customers, use techniques such as rapid iterative design and paper prototypes to thoroughly explore the design space and polish the usability.
Feverish Editing
I missed something that I’m attributing to fiendish cleverness when I first looked at Fever’s sharing preferences. It seems that Mr. Inman wants you to edit them:
You can see it in the screen shot I took on my previous post, as well. It could be just random chance, as the folks that use those forms of social sharing are most likely to be the same people who buy Fever. But I’ll just have to stay with my supposition that he gave the subconscious cue to change the settings.
September 24, 2009
- Cabel Sasser turns the Windows 7 Party into something interesting
- Proving once again, it’s always funnier when you censor the cussing.
- Rise of the Tablog
- Nick Cernis has a gripe with blogs becoming too centered on production, rather than just being stuff people write:
It’s frightfully hard to write a blog without feeling that it must do something: even the most humble blogger is encouraged to create a unique selling point, target a ‘laser-focussed niche’, embrace social media, spawn viral content, track stats, and have a dedicated marketing drive; they must teach and inspire, build ‘authority’, start a ‘conversation’, and foster a ‘community’; they should seek out a purpose, a gameplan, a revenue stream, and an exit strategy.
While I agree with most of what he writes, different people will always have different ideas about what great content is. That’s why we get posts like this ever few months. This essay seems like another part of the regular cycle of ‘blogs are dead’ that never seems to stop showing up.
September 23, 2009
- The 7 signs your UI was created by a programmer
- The ghosts of Visual Basic 6 are coming back to haunt me. These are spot on, with this being my pet peeve:
6. Not implemented message boxes
Ahh, the GUI equivalent of source code TODO comments. Of course, it’s an in-house software give-away; no commercial (desktop) software would be brazen enough to ship with bits of functionality dangling from the stumps of buttons and menu items.
- iPhone Design Template Sketchbook
- For the people who need paper to be creative, I guess this will work. Nice if you’re just brainstorming.
- Insert WebKit into Internet Explorer with Google Chrome Frame
- Google trying to find ways to beat the Internet Explorer problem.
- Lots of advice for that new Apple notebook
- Especially for the batteries. I did not realize I needed to do this. Stupid modern technology.
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time.
Apple recommends you discharge the battery once a month. Now you tell me.
September 22, 2009
- Six Degrees of Wikipedia
- Like the Kevin Bacon game. Interesting to see how much of Wikipedia relates with the rest of Wikipedia. Or, in some cases, doesn’t relate.
- Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking
- I’m not sure how this question came up again.
Q: Does this mean that Google will always ignore the keywords meta tag?
A: It’s possible that Google could use this information in the future, but it’s unlikely. Google has ignored the keywords meta tag for years and currently we see no need to change that policy.
- The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
- The first one sets the tone:
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
While I won’t agree with all that’s written here, it sure sounds like the author got most of this right. Taken in context, it all makes sense.
The Mac OS X Name Game
A while ago I wrote about the problem of naming an operating system after an animal. While it takes the technical jargon off it, and it becomes more manageable from a marketing standpoint, it makes it incredibly difficult to put in context. This is a redux of the same rant I had on a day when I got tired of people calling that operating system ‘Leopard’.
If I hear Mac OS X 10.5 called ‘Leopard’ one more time, I think I’m going to start that killing spree I’m always going on about. Oh, and now it’s even better, with the ‘Snow Leopard’. And just to keep upping my urge to kill, people trying to be cute are calling it Snowy Leopard. Prison is sounding more and more like a workable option.
You see, Apple came up with this nifty convention of code–naming the operating system by some large cat name. With each 10.x iteration, it’s given the next version a new, feline–inspired code–name. While cute and fun in 2004 (and somewhat kitsch), it’s grown beyond its usefulness.
Here’s a fun game: let’s put these in order:
Puma
Leopard
Tiger
Cheetah
Panther
Jaguar
Snow Leopard
Got it? Here’s the answer:
Cheetah
Puma
Jaguar
Panther
Tiger
Leopard
Snow Leopard
Simple, really, because, in every bit of writing you ever find, you’ll see something like this: Mac OS X 10.4 Panther
. Honestly, there’s not any need for either the numbers or the name. Pick one, and it makes it easier to define. Cheetah is 10.0, Puma is 10.1, and so on.
The problem with this, however, is that without stating what ‘Cheetah’ is, you’ve no perspective. Even in writing this, I continue to mess up the order. It’s just too confusing going by the accepted convention of animal names. That’s what my next quiz demonstrates.
Put these in order:
10.4
10.0
10.6
10.3
10.5
10.2
10.1
I’ll guide you to Wikipedia or Google to figure out the answers to this one. The point being, after seven public releases of Mac OS X, it’s time to retire the big cats, and go with the more logical, numbering convention. I don’t even think I’m out of line with Apple’s marketing strategy.
I think. I could be wrong.
Unnecessary additional rant on 10.5’s packaging
For some reason, Apple decided to not even use any actual Leopards when they got their promotional material for 10.5’s launch. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, nor does it now. I think somebody got a clue, because 10.6 is just silly with pictures of snow–covered leopards.
Photoshoped, bloodless snow–covered leopards, but I digress…
Take a look at that box. See any fur? No, you see the spiral of some fictional galaxy, far, far away. It’s the way they’re showcasing Time Machine, the spiffy new backup technology that’s one of the planks in the upgrade campaign. Really, the only place you’ll see any fur is on the disk itself, and not on any of the promotional material, and not on Apple’s website.
No, it’s all about things that are not mammals. Except the name. Stop it, already.
September 21, 2009
- The Data Liberation Front
- Google being serious about being open. I’ve often wondered why they offer so many ways to get your stuff out of Google apps (e.g. like all the data you can pull out of Analytics). Their motto:
Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google’s products. Our team’s goal is to make it easier for them to move data in and out.
More places should do this (*cough* *cough* Facebook Twitter MySpace etc etc etc *cough* *cough*).
- Georgia and Verdana typefaces become credible
- I consider this a rather stunning announcement, considering the source (Microsoft).
- The HTML5 drag and drop disaster
- A fine rant about something that Microsoft came up with that has somehow survived, and made it into HTML5. It should not have:
Web developers MUST NOT (in the sense of RFC 2119) use HTML5 drag and drop. They should use old-school scripts instead.
….
In fact, it’s so outrageously bad that I’ve gone on strike. I refuse to do any more research on drag and drop. Go do it yourself. Or don’t bother. Whatever. I don’t care.