Windows 7 has been working well, but the other day it just stopped being happy and refused to launch any Explorer windows (like file manager). It said, “Interface Not Supported” and that was it. Come on Microsoft, please be a little better about your errors and give some information. I google’d for a while and…
For anyone who has ever used a Microsoft product, this will seem familiar. Why can’t Microsoft respect the “Remember My Credentials” checkbox? They never remember anything! Why bother with the box making me think it would work and then just ignore my request. Rather than complain bitterly, I did some googling to try and find…
It looks like my WP-Spam plugin was getting false positives and blocking some users. It “might” be that it was conflicting with my MCE Comments Plugin. So I turned off both and took this as an opportunity to try out a new spam blocker plugin. I will turn on MCE Comments again at some point…
I’ve been using Windows 7 on my home computer (Dell Precision 380), work (Dell Dimension 9200) and an old laptop (Dell Latitude D610). I haven’t put it in Katie’s laptop or the kids computer. Overall, there is a decent amount to like. Responsiveness is probably the number one thing. Some UI enhancements are welcome, but…
Being in the software industry, this topic has been on my mind for years. What does Quality software mean? What are the trade-offs? When do you release the software? How does this affect the user experience? Examples: 1. Photoshop CS4. I purchased a copy of Photoshop CS4 about a month ago. At first I was…
Sometimes, you start the day and think, “The Jets are going to win, and I am not going to completely reinstall my operating system!” Well, it’s the end of the day and I was completely wrong. I first downloaded some photos off our newish Canon Powershot SD890IS. Then, I uploaded them to our Picasa web…
We have Verizon and love the service in general. Great reception compared to AT&T, which we had previously. We have had very simple LG phones for a long time. Since we have been in the contract for 2 years, we have the option of upgrading. Katie desires to check her Google Calendar from wherever she…
At work, I had noticed that there was s0me activity on Twitter around the product. In other words (for my mom), people were publically saying things about Marketo, some good and some bad. I joined twitter to see what the hubbub was. I now have Twitter account with actual tweets. Gee, that makes me feel…
There is an old story I tell to describe a common engineering project that goes wrong. The Setup A customer wanted us to build a content management system for them. They insisted we use Linux/Perl instead of Windows/Cold Fusion. We had never used Linux/Perl before, but one of our employees said, “I can do it,…
Liquid Canvas is the closest thing I have seen yet to my dream of a SuperDiv. The SuperDiv is a DIV that I can apply styles like: Rounded Corners Shadows/Glows Fades Transparencies Of course, there are details on each on of those. The Liquid Canvas demo is really good. I am going to download it…
I had never heard of Tilt-Shift Photography before. This smashing magazine article on it is fascinating. It’s all optical illusions using focus/blur. I love it. Check out the time-lapse stuff at the bottom. It blows my mind. How awesome is it that you can trick the mind with just some fancy equipment? I love how…
I don’t have the opportunity to use plugins as much as I would like. Today, I stumbled upon one that I think has excellent UX. It is the jQuery LightBox. Keyboard shortcuts, nice fade transitions, great usability for next/back and pleasant titles. If I were using a lightbox plugin, I think this is the one…
Remember in Back to the Future when Doc fed his car garbage and it turned it into energy? It was called Mr. Fusion. I thought, “What a great idea! Trun garbage into energy!” Well, they were pretty smart, I guess. Today I heard news about a laser at Lawrence Livermore Labs that can create unlimited…
This one is inspired from a picture I saw with a shadow on the bottom. The shadow doesn’t go all the way up, so I don’t have to worry about repeating background images. It was a little bit of a pain but it worked out in the end. I should probably swap the PNG files…