I often see technology out there that is solid, but lacking a tiny bit of the details from a UX perspective. Or I would like to extend it a little bit more for a UX reason. When that happens, every once in a while, someone tells me I am “complaining” and says, “Why don’t you…
I actually am having trouble finding a decent Design Pattern for a Tree. A tree is a critical user interface element and is being used more and more on applications. Since, I can’t find one, I am going to quickly summarize the pattern I proscribe. Let’s start with the EXT JS Tree. This tree is…
I am working on a page with a small bit of JavaScript written by someone else. They are in the Pre-jQUery era. It’s all old and crusty code that is hard to read. I think I could have made the same stuff in jQuery using about 5 lines. jQuery just makes web page development so…
I have been getting a little bit on a roll with the book. I got one chapter approved and another chapter written in first draft form. I like the style of it. I hope the publisher can get me an illustrator. There are tons of pictures and my reliance on Microsoft Clip Art is pretty…
I don’t know exactly why, but I made an Amazon.com Wishlist. I was writing my book and got to a stopping point and wanted to see what Amazon.com did for some UI thing. And I just said, “Well, I am here. Why not? Note: The content of this site is always objective and free. I…
My bosses recently purchased an Ikea couch. I won’t go into all the details, but here is the salient point: The directions did not have a single word. All pictures. I liked it very much. It was international. I found the directions clear and concise. Good job. Interesting, there is an ikeaFans.com website. It says…
Microsoft just released a new upgrade to their Maps site. (I still think its a horrible name, maps.microsoft.com would be smarter) Anyway, it’s a good upgrade. The bird’s eye view is so much better than anything Google Maps has to offer. The Google street view is interesting, but in reality, I use the bird’s eye…
There is an old story that I like, but I can’t find it on the web. It goes something like this: This was back in the days of large servers with big vacuum tubes. A major server stopped working, causing panic in a large corporation. All work ground to a halt. The engineers could not…
I added in more detail to my Email Template. It turns out that the box model on Microsoft Outlook 2007 is different than the box model in IE6 and 7. Specifically, when calculating the width of a TD cell, it can’t deal with padding on the same item. So I had to separate the padding…
Although it was a rocky beginning, (see resolution) I have really fallen in love with EXT, specifically the 2.0 release (currently in beta.) The quality of the interaction design is top-notch. Jack Slocum has the extremely rare combination of talents including programming, visual design, interaction design and CSS. He is able to take the modern…
If Al Gore wins the Nobel prize, he should run for president. I am convinced that he would win. The country feels guilty about the 2000 election. We know Gore won, but we let it slide and let Bush take the prize. In hindsight, that was a really shitty decision. The Supreme Court is now…
The Carolina Panthers brought in Vinny Testaverde to back up David Carr. Jake Delhomme had his season cut short by injury and David Carr is banged up too. This means Vinny might see some MORE playing time. He is now 43 years old! About Vinny: The 6-foot-5 Testaverde certainly brings experience. He ranks sixth in…
As a follow up to the Filespots review, someone at Freshlogic asked me to review their competitor called Folders. Although I feel that my expertise should be PAID for, I still can’t help myself. Someone asking me to write a review of a cool new Web 2.0 app? What can I do? Maybe I should…
I filled out this MSNBC Candidates/Issues Matrix. Looking carefully at the positions of all the candidates, I rated them all. As I expected, Hillary Clinton is not as progressive as I would like her to be. Mike Gravel has some good positions, but he seems “a few kb short of a meg” to me. The…