I don't like the OSX dock, and its lumping together of "start a new task" and "return to a previous task context"... (not to mention the hopelessness of "alt-tab to the application you're thinking of, then alt-tab (or whatever) to the window in that program) instead of Window's "alt-tab to your task" but I was thinking a better windows task bar would be just the icons of the running programs, but hovering or clicking brought up all the mini screen shots of just that application... that would actually be useful, one of the Windows 7 shots gave me hope that that's what they're leaning towards...
Heh, cute. Actually that's the kind of typo iPhone is good at catching! I'd be more likely to "heave an iPhone" than "ahve an iphone", I was just in a hurry.
The other thing I don't get it is, do the "brick Macs" look that much different from the outside?
I gotta say that's about the same reckoning I came up with -- assume 1 and 2 are there because 3 was still numbered, and then count major changes to look and feel and style.
Also: I think a return to numbering might help justify forced upgrades... Vista is not clearly an increment to XP, but 8 would be to 7, so a clamor to stick with the old version would seem like more of a throwback stance.
The funny thing is that if Earth is in some kind of "special bubble" it's kind of a reintroduction of pre-Copernicus thinking, that we're in a special, priveleged spot.
Ugh, I gotta get my notification of replies going.
I agree with almost everything you said. It's so easy to "design" without the constraints of the real world.
Interested to hear about the Fujuitsu. I have a tablet PC Lifebook from them, about the size of an EEEPC 901... I've been impressed w/ its durability over the last few years.
Also, I'd disagree that the iPhone success is even primarily marketing-driven. I'm an old Palm fan who had a Windows PocketPC smartphone and played with a few others, and while clones might start to go the same direction, NO device had the resolution, design and UI slickness, form factor, etc that the iPhone came out with -- and the app store even further upped the ante.
My favorite alternative is that we need someone to do to Einstein what Einstein did to Newton; that just like Newton's laws are near-perfect and beautiful at reasonable speeds, maybe there's something that happens at cosmically grand distances, masses, or propagation delays for Gravity that we're going to have to be awfully clever to ever hope to reliably detect.
Dark Matter and Dark Energy both felt like big hacks to me.
But, I am by no means a scientist, just an interest layman who hasn't done enough reading.
I think you are too dismissive of the software they're doing; a basic computer w/ connectivity and a browser and some document handling is a 2/3 of the battle, and opens up whole new worlds. But there's another 1/3 of software that really encourages active constructive learning.
(that said, much of the the OLPC learning software is clunky + unfriendly in UI, but they are working to make it better as a learning platform)
People can pick up officedrone-ware later. Diversity from "standard" might be a worthwhile goal in and of itself.
I like how the spin in the article description makes it feel like it's doing the industry a service when really it's just some guy politely ranting and daydreaming.
I'd say there are different types of "efficiency"; I find "concise keystrokes" to be among the least useful for me purposefully, since what I look for in an editor is "low mental load", i.e., don't give me a lot to keep track of, just give me a small suite of simple keystrokes (and, given my history, this is preferably the Windows-flavor of what originated on the Mac ctrl-x,v,c, etc, with shift-select, good use of home and end keys, etc)
In particular, the "mental load" of modal editors bugs the hell out of me.
The other thing too many editors miss is really clear macro recording capabilities...
I'm not saying you're wrong about what works for you, since you're right on w/ a certain kind of power user... just explaining how what some other geeks look for in editors.
It's pretty amazing how that ad manages to be elitist and egalitarian at the same time, thanks to the relative ubiquity of Windows PCs -- all these interesting people run windows and you do too!
Vista is still a heap of "throw everything at a window and see what sticks", but it's a good ad.
There are, in all, few "needs" for a highend consumer gizmo, just levels of "want".
I NEEDED a Todo program. I made due with an iPhone memo, because so many other things were so great (and overall it was a better solution than switching to notecards or lugging a Palm.)
Yes, there might be things that will legitimately veto the choice of an iPhone (fewer now w/ the app store) but the original accusation of fanboi-ism was not that well-founded.
"I think this post sums up the term "fanboi" nicely."
No, it really didn't... I don't know what "specs" we're talking about being missed here, but a good interface is crucial for many people... like Myron Krueger said: "If people were going to use computers all day, everyday, the design of such machines was not solely a technical problem-- it was also an aesthetic one. A lousy interface would mean a lousy life."
"Pick almost any other smart phone feature and put it head-to-head against the iPhone and the iPhone loses."
This was a more defensible stance before the app store got under swing.... it seemed ridiculous that my Palm was a better To Do and journaler than my iPhone, but Appigo's Todo and Twitteriffic now make it the best device I've owned.
Probably the keyboard isn't fantastic for stuff that involves a lot of symbols, but in combination w/ its word recognition I can practically touch type.
Thinking more about communities than questions (no one liked the folks just jumping in to get a question answered and not sticking around to be part of the group) -- It was pretty cool that you could reach such a wide range of communities and viewpoints through a single, user-chosen interface.
My school, Tufts, unceremoniously cut out Usenet a long while back (it was sad how under populated its own tufts.general group had gotten -- it's the whole "tough to compete with the web" thing writ small) and I never got around to going back, in part because of disliking every interface but Tin...
Heh. I love my iPhone, but recognize that if Safari had some kind of "blue screen" rather than a quiet return to the main homepage, the perception of quality of the beast would be a lot less than it is now. Even a page like BoingBoing -- big,but not huge--gets it to go away.
It seems to me that it's volume of content and story where most indy games don't shine... there are of course some very happy exceptions to that. And not all games have to be about content, but still...
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I tend to dial Vista's UI way, way back.
(though I still miss the old Ctrl-F as seperate app from Win95/98 time - search as "sidebar" is a UI wasteland of lost context and difficult to mentally model behavior surprises)
I don't like the OSX dock, and its lumping together of "start a new task" and "return to a previous task context"... (not to mention the hopelessness of "alt-tab to the application you're thinking of, then alt-tab (or whatever) to the window in that program) instead of Window's "alt-tab to your task"
but I was thinking a better windows task bar would be just the icons of the running programs, but hovering or clicking brought up all the mini screen shots of just that application... that would actually be useful, one of the Windows 7 shots gave me hope that that's what they're leaning towards...
Oddly enough that's kind of the trick the iPhone uses...
Heh, cute.
Actually that's the kind of typo iPhone is good at catching! I'd be more likely to "heave an iPhone" than "ahve an iphone", I was just in a hurry.
The other thing I don't get it is, do the "brick Macs" look that much different from the outside?
is a glass touchpad that much better?
I ahve an iphone but the only plus I see is that i can see an LCD through it...
I gotta say that's about the same reckoning I came up with -- assume 1 and 2 are there because 3 was still numbered, and then count major changes to look and feel and style.
Also: I think a return to numbering might help justify forced upgrades... Vista is not clearly an increment to XP, but 8 would be to 7, so a clamor to stick with the old version would seem like more of a throwback stance.
The funny thing is that if Earth is in some kind of "special bubble" it's kind of a reintroduction of pre-Copernicus thinking, that we're in a special, priveleged spot.
Ugh, I gotta get my notification of replies going.
I agree with almost everything you said. It's so easy to "design" without the constraints of the real world.
Interested to hear about the Fujuitsu. I have a tablet PC Lifebook from them, about the size of an EEEPC 901... I've been impressed w/ its durability over the last few years.
Also, I'd disagree that the iPhone success is even primarily marketing-driven. I'm an old Palm fan who had a Windows PocketPC smartphone and played with a few others, and while clones might start to go the same direction, NO device had the resolution, design and UI slickness, form factor, etc that the iPhone came out with -- and the app store even further upped the ante.
My favorite alternative is that we need someone to do to Einstein what Einstein did to Newton; that just like Newton's laws are near-perfect and beautiful at reasonable speeds, maybe there's something that happens at cosmically grand distances, masses, or propagation delays for Gravity that we're going to have to be awfully clever to ever hope to reliably detect.
Dark Matter and Dark Energy both felt like big hacks to me.
But, I am by no means a scientist, just an interest layman who hasn't done enough reading.
I think you are too dismissive of the software they're doing;
a basic computer w/ connectivity and a browser and some document handling is a 2/3 of the battle, and opens up whole new worlds. But there's another 1/3 of software that really encourages active constructive learning.
(that said, much of the the OLPC learning software is clunky + unfriendly in UI, but they are working to make it better as a learning platform)
People can pick up officedrone-ware later. Diversity from "standard" might be a worthwhile goal in and of itself.
I like how the spin in the article description makes it feel like it's doing the industry a service when really it's just some guy politely ranting and daydreaming.
excellent, thanks! I did some light googling, I'll try to do my part and help get that site some more google juice, it's a lovely thing.
I'd say there are different types of "efficiency"; I find "concise keystrokes" to be among the least useful for me purposefully, since what I look for in an editor is "low mental load", i.e., don't give me a lot to keep track of, just give me a small suite of simple keystrokes (and, given my history, this is preferably the Windows-flavor of what originated on the Mac ctrl-x,v,c, etc, with shift-select, good use of home and end keys, etc)
In particular, the "mental load" of modal editors bugs the hell out of me.
The other thing too many editors miss is really clear macro recording capabilities...
I'm not saying you're wrong about what works for you, since you're right on w/ a certain kind of power user... just explaining how what some other geeks look for in editors.
DAMNIT why did I just lurk for so long? I could had 5 digits, easy.
It's pretty amazing how that ad manages to be elitist and egalitarian at the same time, thanks to the relative ubiquity of Windows PCs -- all these interesting people run windows and you do too!
Vista is still a heap of "throw everything at a window and see what sticks", but it's a good ad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_curse_words :-( no sign of it, and it was geeky and great.
Hate, hate, hate the memory hole that Wikipedia throws deleted articles into. Kill the article if you must but leave some way to its history...
I read that as "Lensman" would would actually be pretty appropriate.
It all depends on the specifics.
There are, in all, few "needs" for a highend consumer gizmo, just levels of "want".
I NEEDED a Todo program. I made due with an iPhone memo, because so many other things were so great (and overall it was a better solution than switching to notecards or lugging a Palm.)
Yes, there might be things that will legitimately veto the choice of an iPhone (fewer now w/ the app store) but the original accusation of fanboi-ism was not that well-founded.
"I think this post sums up the term "fanboi" nicely."
No, it really didn't... I don't know what "specs" we're talking about being missed here, but a good interface is crucial for many people...
like Myron Krueger said: "If people were going to use computers all day, everyday, the design of such machines was not solely a technical problem-- it was also an aesthetic one. A lousy interface would mean a lousy life."
"Pick almost any other smart phone feature and put it head-to-head against the iPhone and the iPhone loses."
This was a more defensible stance before the app store got under swing....
it seemed ridiculous that my Palm was a better To Do and journaler than my iPhone, but Appigo's Todo and Twitteriffic now make it the best device I've owned.
Probably the keyboard isn't fantastic for stuff that involves a lot of symbols, but in combination w/ its word recognition I can practically touch type.
This device is amazing.
are they saying it's WORSE than my first model iPhone?
Do people think my new usual nomme de web "kirkjerk" means I'm a jerk for real?
Thinking more about communities than questions (no one liked the folks just jumping in to get a question answered and not sticking around to be part of the group) -- It was pretty cool that you could reach such a wide range of communities and viewpoints through a single, user-chosen interface.
My school, Tufts, unceremoniously cut out Usenet a long while back (it was sad how under populated its own tufts.general group had gotten -- it's the whole "tough to compete with the web" thing writ small) and I never got around to going back, in part because of disliking every interface but Tin...
Heh. I love my iPhone, but recognize that if Safari had some kind of "blue screen" rather than a quiet return to the main homepage, the perception of quality of the beast would be a lot less than it is now. Even a page like BoingBoing -- big ,but not huge--gets it to go away.
It seems to me that it's volume of content and story where most indy games don't shine... there are of course some very happy exceptions to that. And not all games have to be about content, but still...
It's right up there with
'Nuff Said.
to kind of undercut an argument. Man, the arrogance of that, combined with its faux "aw shucks" mentality, irks me every time.