Brackets is a new HTML5-based code editor from Adobe. It’s open-source, very early in development, and built with itself — well, mostly, I’m sure. Could be interesting. (Via Chuck Skoda.)
Geek & Mild by Sean Sperte
To the question of why conversation is important, it’s sometimes hard to prove empirically, but how about this story of a dad who took a gun to a daughter’s laptop after she posted a ranting Facebook status update?
“I didn’t talk much about it to my parents – it just kinda bottled up inside.”
If that isn’t a picture of being more connected and less connected than ever … this family needs less connection, more conversation.
30-Apr 2012
The Flight From Conversation. Sherry Turkle:
…the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.
And:
But connecting in sips doesn’t work as well when it comes to understanding and knowing one another
And:
It’s hard to do anything with 3,000 Facebook friends except connect.
And:
When people are alone, even for a few moments, they fidget and reach for a device. Here connection works like a symptom, not a cure, and our constant, reflexive impulse to connect shapes a new way of being.
(She also gave this talk at TED a few months ago.)
This piece underscores the reason I’m helping co-found a new company that, on the surface, looks just like another social tool but is really a whole lot more.
30-Apr 2012
Feynman’s Nobel Ambition. He says:
Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything
The morale: do what you love. And if you stop loving it, stop doing it (until you can figure out a way to love it again).
22-Apr 2012
Macworld on what you need to know about the Flashback trojan:
You are at risk if you meet four criteria:
- You have Java installed on your Mac. […]
- You do not have the Java for OS X Lion 2012-001 (if you’re running OS X Lion) or Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7 installed (if you’re running Snow Leopard) or you were infected before either of them was installed. […]
- You allow Java applets to display in your browser. […]
- You do not have certain security tools installed on your Mac that Flashback checks for, including Little Snitch, Xcode, and a few anti-malware tools.
The steps to check/remove the trojan are relatively simple, but require use of Terminal.app. Alternatively, F-Secure has released a removal tool you can run.
18-Apr 2012
Obvious isn’t easy
A lot of talk about designing for obviousness in the design community lately. I just have one observation beyond agreement. Designing for obviousness is hard because you have to account for existing user conventions despite their weaknesses. That means good, obvious design has to take into account all three tenses: past, present, and future.
9-Apr 2012
Here’s a smart trick for quickly getting iOS screenshots to your Mac using Photo Stream. (Via Shawn Blanc.)
9-Apr 2012
Jeff Bezos wants to recover the F-1 engines from Apollo 11 that are currently 14,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. (Via Daring Fireball.)
4-Apr 2012
Today (March 31st) is World Backup Day. Remember to back up your files and check your restores.
31-Mar 2012
On building Flipboard for iPhone:
I needed something to represent that journey. To give it edges, for me. For the company. So I did what I do — I flip-flopped the data. I made a book.
31-Mar 2012
I haven’t used it yet, but the FontFont Subsetter, for optimizing web fonts, looks like a great tool.
30-Mar 2012
Saw this ad last night on TV and literally applauded after it was over.
26-Mar 2012
David Chartier hopes Apple gets ‘back to the basics’ with iOS 6. I’ve jailbroken my phone to get some of these features and fixes. For instance, FolderEnhancer makes folders on iOS actually useable for me.
26-Mar 2012
Here’s a great list of improvements in Photoshop CS6. The vector pixel snapping alone is worth the cost of upgrading (which hasn’t been announced yet, by the way).
26-Mar 2012
Why AirPlay just wrecked your responsive media strategy. Craig Villamor:
We can no longer presume that the content accessed through mobile devices will also be viewed on them.
The problem: media served to mobile devices is typically of less-quality, so when those devices then “beam” the media to larger screens via AirPlay, it looks like crap.
21-Mar 2012
Here’s a good counter-point to the argument I made about navigation labels not always needing to follow convention. While I found myself nodding as I read, I also realized I had (again) bought into the premise, that:
if users cannot find the information they are looking for, chances are they will abandon their track, never to return.
Seems like a reasonable assumption, and it might be anecdotally true. But I believe users have become extremely resilient to varying interfaces, labels, and navigation. Just look at Chris Pirillo’s dad trying to use Windows 8. Most UX professionals (myself included) would have guessed he would give up trying to get back to the “tiles” interface after 30 seconds. Instead, he kept clicking around for three minutes.
Don’t misunderstand me, though. I’m not saying we should throw out good practices. Our job is to make the experience less frustrating, not more. I just don’t think we should blindly follow convention, automatically apply UX solutions without first clearly identifying the goals and problems. As Wilson Miner so eloquently charged: we have the opportunity to build the new digital world. Let’s not default in doing so.
21-Mar 2012
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