October 2010
17 posts
Neven Mrgan: Black Menu Bars in Lion
A suggestion for Mac OS X Lion: since the team is trying to integrate the menubar into the desktop a bit more, to make it less prominent - the translucent menubar was an attempt at just this - why not go all the way and make it black? This way, it’ll blend into the bezel of (most) new Macs.
Looks like iPad. Looks good.
(via Minimal Mac)
Does Flash Crash?
Marco Arment, regarding removing Adobe Flash entirely from Safari:
beachballing and crashing my browser are major inconveniences that I’m happy to avoid
I don’t find I have this problem, although I do use ClickToFlash so Flash only loads on request. Even so, when Flash content is shown, I never find it causing anything to hang and I can not think of one occasion where Flash has crashed....
What is Amazon's approach to product development... →
There is an approach called “working backwards” that is widely used at Amazon. We try to work backwards from the customer, rather than starting with an idea for a product and trying to bolt customers onto it.
…
For new initiatives a product manager typically starts by writing an internal press release announcing the finished product.
There is nothing backwards about...
Jason Kottke does some interesting calculations →
10 petabytes of text messages would cost only $503 billion to print out (excluding paper costs, which would add ~$89 billion to the total). Who knew that texting was more expensive than inkjet printing by a factor of 20?
Well I don’t find this very surprising. There’s a reason books are delivered on paper rather than via a stream of text messages. (Okay, there might be other...
Downloads Destination
Reduction of the day: ceasing to use my Downloads folder. Instead, I have told Safari and Mail to save downloads to the Desktop.
The Downloads folder is just another step that does not seem necessary; it is just sweeping the mess under the rug.
I used to keep the Downloads folder clean and mostly empty. Since there is no mess, there is no need for the rug (Downloads folder). (Although, that’s...
Looking for ClickToGif
Here’s something I’m looking for that would make things more pleasant sometimes: a blocker for animated GIFs for Safari. Dancing images are rather annoying when you are trying to read (or even just skim quickly).
I don’t want to use SafariStand. A simple Safari Extension would be suitable. I don’t know what would be required to make something like this.
Also, Kottke recently linked to a piece...
Notational Velocity Tricks
Here is a Notational Velocity trick I discovered recently: you can ‘command-arrow’ between the end of the note title field and the beginning of the note body field. Move the cursor to the beginning of the main note area in Notational Velocity. For example, by pressing command-up. Then press command-left. The selection goes to the note’s title so you can rename it. Press command-right at the end of...
Fun With the Theme
I’ve been playing about with CSS Media Queries. This site’s scalability is now awesome. Very narrow is quite good, although it breaks Firefox. Better use of space could be made for very wide views. I have not put any effort into optimising for iPhone, but it still works remarkably well.
Read about Media Queries: A List Apart: Articles: Responsive Web Design (via Thibaut Sailly)
I removed those...
Report From My Time in Germany
I came back from Germany over two months ago. I just sent the report I wrote about my time there to the Engineering Department’s industrial placement coordinator. To add some variety, I have decided to publish the report here. Originally, the report was for the DAAD, who organise the RISE internship scheme that I was on. (That is the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, which is German Academic...
Seven Steps to Mastering Your Web Browser →
Brett Kelly has some useful web browser tips on Bridging the Nerd Gap. Number one is “learn the keyboard shortcuts”. I agree that keyboard shortcuts can be useful, but I’m not keen on what Brett has written.
Anybody who knows me even a little knows that I actively dislike the mouse and studies have shown that the more you can do without taking your hand off of the keyboard, the better off...
Design
Microsoft buying Adobe would fix both companies’ Apple problem
Peter Bright at Ars Technica:
Microsoft hasn’t cared too much about design in the past, but that’s no longer the case with Windows Phone 7. Strong design is key to the new platform
Misuse of the word ‘design’ like this drive me crazy. Design is a major stage in the development of any product. It’s really about...
My Trash ‘Application’ and Aliases
I discovered a horrible flaw in my desktop Trash solution.
When passed an alias, the script moves the original file or folder to the Trash.
I have not found a solution to this problem yet. Aliases must be deleted via a more standard method (my favourite being ⌘⌫). I advise against using my Trash ‘Application’ for now as the risk of making a mistake with aliases is too great.
Skype and Support
Skype Blog - Skype now available for Android phones:
Skype has been tested on HTC and Motorola devices with Android OS 2.1 and above. It may work on other Android phones, but we can’t guarantee full functionality or compatibility.
John Gruber posted this quotation on the Daring Fireball Linked List. I don’t think there is anything deeper here (about Android platform fragmentation). Skype is...
2010 Gadget Census — The IET →
Kris Sangani:
Video cassette recorders were still common ten years ago. However, in the early part of the noughties they were phased out and replaced by DVD players. Major retailers such as Dixons stopped selling them in 2004. However, now the DVD player market is now expected to decline rapidly as consumers are expected to upgrade to HD-capable Blu-ray players or may be even ditch optical...
