Flash Interface Design Made Simple
Grok Headline matches for Flash Interface Design Made Simple
User interface design for web
applications: It’s a different world
from web site design
User interface design for web
applications: It’s a different world
from web site design
11/13/2003 04:16 AMUser Interface Design for Web
Applications: It's a Different World
from Web Site Design
User Interface Design for Web
Applications: It's a Different World
from Web Site Design
11/15/2003 04:25 AMdigital-web.com/features/feature_2003-11.shtml
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CMS Made Simple 0.6.1
CMS Made Simple 0.6.1
09/15/2004 03:47 PMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.6.2
CMS Made Simple 0.6.2
09/21/2004 10:49 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.6.3
CMS Made Simple 0.6.3
09/22/2004 06:40 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.3.1
CMS Made Simple 0.3.1
07/28/2004 09:43 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.2
CMS Made Simple 0.2
07/06/2004 09:47 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS - CMS Made Simple
CMS - CMS Made Simple
07/01/2004 10:00 PM0.1 Released!
CMS Made Simple 0.6
CMS Made Simple 0.6
09/02/2004 10:17 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.4.1
CMS Made Simple 0.4.1
08/13/2004 10:43 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.3.2
CMS Made Simple 0.3.2
07/30/2004 10:10 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.5
CMS Made Simple 0.5
08/23/2004 12:11 PMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.1
CMS Made Simple 0.1
07/02/2004 10:00 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.4
CMS Made Simple 0.4
08/11/2004 10:04 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.2.1
CMS Made Simple 0.2.1
07/14/2004 09:53 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
CMS Made Simple 0.3
CMS Made Simple 0.3
07/22/2004 09:48 AMAn easy-to-use content management system.
Multi-Interface Web Services Made Easy
Multi-Interface Web Services Made Easy
05/23/2002 10:39 PMGPRS made as simple as ABC
GPRS made as simple as ABC
06/02/2004 05:25 AMElectronics Talk Jun 2 2004 8:36AM GMT
MSDE & SQL Management made simple
MSDE & SQL Management made simple
06/29/2004 02:29 AMVale Software has just released a major update to their MSDE
Management tool, allowing you to administer and develop your MSDE &
SQL databases more visually and simply than ever before. [PRWEB Jun
29, 2004]
Book Scanning Made Simple
Book Scanning Made Simple
12/29/2003 11:47 PMBook-scanning
uncovered: A nice look at a book scanning machine.
A technician lays the book onto a special cradle inside
the machine and air jets gently fluff up pages on the right side. A
robotic arm swings over the book and sucks up one page with a special
vacuum, and pulls the page over. Two more robotic arms then swing over
and flatten out the pages with clear plastic clamps.
I love this idea. When I was a kid, I lived in the public library.
I just loved the idea that so much knowledge was contained in the
books around me. I have a subscription to O'Reilly's Safari, and I love
that so many books are available to me, on demand.
The words "archives" and "library" give me goosebumps. This
article almost got me teary-eyed, thinking about its implications.
I have professional fantasies of becoming a librarian.
All my hopes and dreams for the Internet are riding on machines
like this. I want every printed word in the history of Mankind
available instantly. Is that too much to ask? I have a huge smile on
my face right now, just thinking about it.
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Rich Salz: SOA Made Simple
Rich Salz: SOA Made Simple
03/30/2005 09:19 PMRich Salz shows us how to create WSDL descriptions of web services
simply and easily, using rather a lot of boilerplate.
Q&A: Mobile Standards Made Simple
Q&A: Mobile Standards Made Simple
07/14/2004 01:14 PMMobile phones are the most common digital devices in the world, and
they're about to get more popular. Mobile phone sales in 2004 are
expected to exceed 600 million units worldwide, according to
projections in June from Gartner, Inc., meaning that one person in 10
worldwide will acquire a new mobile phone this year (see Related
Links, right).
User Interface Design
User Interface Design
06/14/2002 12:15 PM"(...) good design always involves a process of compromise."
Email Interface Design 101
Email Interface Design 101
07/16/2002 08:45 AMAn Internet service (like a website) doesn't have to use the web
as its main or only interface. Email interfaces offer the
advantages of being
asynchronous (you don't have to be online to use it) and fast for
repetitive sending of one step commands to a web server, and allow
for requested
interaction by the server. Email interfaces have a lot of untapped
potential.
WordPress — Publishing Made Simple
WordPress — Publishing Made Simple
12/22/2003 06:41 AMAnother nice looking php based weblog and Mini-CMS system .. word
press (was b2) .. WordPress .. este link .. Matt ..
WP
wordpress.org
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Garbage disposal installation made
simple
Garbage disposal installation made
simple
12/27/2004 09:28 PM
Mark Frauenfelder:
My parents are staying with us for the holidays, and today my father
and I installed a garbage disposal in the guesthouse kitchen sink. My
father did 90% of the work, since he's a lot better at this kind of
stuff than I am, but I had to pitch in for certain parts, because one
of his hands is out of commission. He has a rare condition called
Dupuytren's contracture -- thickening of skin tissue in the hands that
makes it impossible to open them. It's a genetic condition that seems
to affect people with Viking ancestry. He had a "
palmar
fasciotomy," a surgical procedure to cut the bands of thickened
tissue. So his right hand is all bandaged up. (Click thumbnails for
enlargement).
We saved a few hours installing the garbage
disposal by using this great wireless switch purchased at Home Depot.
It cost $18 and has a range of 100 feet (we mounted it just a few feet
from the disposal, of course). I'm wondering what else I use these
things for. What a terrific idea!
Information Architecture Made As Simple
As Possible - And No Simpler
Information Architecture Made As Simple
As Possible - And No Simpler
11/04/2003 03:40 PMMac User Interface Design for New
Developers
Mac User Interface Design for New
Developers
10/10/2002 09:55 AMIntigrated Game Design Interface
Intigrated Game Design Interface
03/19/2003 10:24 PMLack of intrest
User Interface Design for Programmers
User Interface Design for Programmers
05/31/2004 11:33 PM
I read Joel
Spolsky's book over the weekend: "User Interface Design for Programmers." This is an
excellent guide to usability — for client apps and for Web
development.
The strength of the book is that it doesn't start by presenting
many hard-and-fast rules, but instead concetrates on general concepts
that you really need to understand to develop an effective user
interface. People Can't Read. People Can't Remember. People Can't
Control the Mouse. Design for Extremes. These principles then
naturally lead to more specific guidelines.
For example: you know how when you first learn CSS, you put a
textarea rule in your sheet to change the font in text boxes from that
ugly monospaced, Courier font to some slick variably-spaced font?
Looks nice, sure, but Joel demonstrates how hard it can be to edit for
some people. Sure, it's fine for you, but you're young and you have
an optical, USB mouse, and you've been using computers since you got
out of diapers.
Sadly, however, everyone isn't you. Some users don't have your
eyesight, motor skills, or experience, and your tiny little
variably-spaced font is now a problem for them. Lower-case L's, for
instance, are now just one pixel wide. A lower-case I differs from a
lower-case L by only a single pixel. If two lower-cased L's are next
to each other ("allegory"), there's only one pixel of "gutter" space
between them — ever tried getting the text insert cursor to land
exactly between them? You're literally trying to hit a 1-pixel wide
target.
Upon reading this, I went back to an app I was writing and changed
all text inputs and text areas to Courier New, 12px. It doesn't look
as nice, but I'll concede that it's easier and clearer to edit.
Sometimes usability comes at the price of how things look, but so it
goes.
Joel touches on the user model and system model that I read about
earlier this year in Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things." Simply put, a user
forms a model in his or her head about how your app works. That model
may have nothing to do with how it really works (the system model),
but that's your problem, not the user's. Your goal as an interface
designer, is to make the implementation model (how the interface
represents the system model) match the user model as closely as
possible.
The book is full of good ideas and really solid, non-frilly advice.
Joel's obvious experience saturates every page (I gather he did the
UI for the ISP Juno, and was on the Microsoft Excel team). It's
full-color with glossy pages and scads of screen caps.
I'll finish here by hand-typing an excerpt that's so good I'll risk
the copyright lawyers. It addresses a point I talked about a while ago when I was struggling with the non-confirmity of
the Linux interface.
I've seen companies where management prides themselves on doing
things deliberately different from Microsoft. "Just because
Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it's right," they brag, and then
proceed to create a gratuitouisly different interface from the one
that people are used to. Before you start chanting the mantra "just
because because Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it's right," please
consider two things.
One, even if it's not right, if Microsoft is doing it in a popular
program like Word, Excel, Windows, or Internet Explorer, millions of
people are going to think that it's right, or at least fairly
standard. [...and] if you refuse to do it on some general religious
principle that Bill Gates is the evil Smurf arch-nemesis Gargamel then
you are just gratuitiously ruining your program so that you can feel
smug and self-satisifed [...]
Two, don't be so sure it's not right. Microsoft spends more money
on usability testing than you do; they keep detailed statistics based
on millions of tech support phone calls; and there's a darn good
chance that they did it that way because more people can figure out
how to use it that way.
As much as I hate to admit Microsoft is right, amen to
that.
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Hand-Made USB Flash Drives
Hand-Made USB Flash Drives
09/27/2004 06:36 AM
I'm a little bit torn. On the one hand, these
hand-crafted USB flash drive lockets are beautiful - much more
appealing than the standard plastic bug shapes. On the other hand, no
matter how attractive they are, I still don't think I want to wear one
around my neck. Still, the choice is yours; Emily Conrad will custom
make you one for prices starting at $250.
Product Page [PortableInk
via WMMNA<
/a>]
Joel gets on the social interface design
bandwagon
Joel gets on the social interface design
bandwagon
09/09/2004 09:16 AM
He
re's an excellent rant by Joel Spolsky (pointed to me via Tim
Lundeen - thanks Tim.)
Joel has been around the block - so it's reassuring to see him grok
this - the most basic of assumptions on the future of software. Its
not just usability anymore - it's about human-human interaction -
social interface design.
Notes and Tips: User Interface Design
Notes and Tips: User Interface Design
06/05/2005 11:12 PM Good Mac user-interface design isn't always easy....
Interface Design as a Life or Death
Proposition
Interface Design as a Life or Death
Proposition
11/18/2002 05:52 AMMapping User-Interface Design to
Cultural Dimensions
Mapping User-Interface Design to
Cultural Dimensions
09/16/2002 06:39 AMCommon Principles: A Usable Interface
Design Primer
Common Principles: A Usable Interface
Design Primer
10/08/2002 07:10 AMThe "Simple" Art of Code Design
The "Simple" Art of Code Design
12/14/2003 01:42 PMI just visited SitePoint's Advanced PHP Forums, and spotted a
debate on
cache design. I only stumbled upon this because I saw that Manuel
Lemos posted to this thread. Manuel has a unique way of writing that
almost always guarantees a heated response.
But Manuel brings up a good point. Most cache classes out there could
do with better designs.
Now one good way of designing things is to define the parameters the
code must work under in the beginning, then work your code from there.
For example, for caching it could be:
- Works in multi-user environment and is portable. I'm also assuming
in this design that we are saving to a file.
- Data must have a basic integrity checks. File IO can fail.
Programs can crash.
- Solid concurrency and stress testing. Caching is typically most
useful in overloaded environments.
Let's address these issues:
- Multi-user: You probably shouldn't be using PHP's file-locking,
unless you're writing a private label class for only yourself. PHP's
flock doesn't work on many systems such as NFS and FAT, so that's a
big no-no. In adodb (and newer versions of smarty too i believe),
content saving use the following file trickery:
a. save contents into temporary file.
b. delete the original cache file, eg. unlink($filename).
c. rename the temporary file, eg. rename($tempname, $filename).
As file rename is guaranteed to be atomic by the operating system, its
sure to work, and very efficient as file functions are always highly
optimized.
- Data integrity: You should store and check the file-size in the
cache file to ensure that the process didn't crash while saving. If
you want stronger integrity, use crc32. In adodb, we store the
file-size and use PHP's serialize function, which has many built-in
integrity checks. Using serialize internally also means you can
automatically save objects and arrays, not merely strings.
- Testing: I've seen elaborate unit tests for caching. But without
the most basic concurrency test you might as well not do any testing.
One such simple testing recipe is to write a script to continiously
poll a cache file, saving occasionally. Output or log all errors
(having a debug mode makes it straight-forward). Then execute the same
script concurrently in separate processes and watch for problems. Let
the testing cook for at least 10 minutes.
The above suggestions sound simple, but as I've learnt, simplicity is
not easy to achieve. In youth, everything is oversimplified or too
complicated - real simplicity comes from experience. Unfortunately,
it's only when we get too old and senile that everything becomes truly
simple ;-)
A Design Epiphany: Keep It Simple
A Design Epiphany: Keep It Simple
05/19/2004 06:04 PMA professor has spent eight months putting forward his own one-word
vision of the future: simplicity.
Desktop Software Deployment Made Simple
with Version 2.3 of MaSaI Installer
Desktop Software Deployment Made Simple
with Version 2.3 of MaSaI Installer
06/05/2005 11:14 PMMaSaI Solutions, a leading provider of Windows Installer tools, today
announced the release of MaSaI Installer 2.3, a popular setup and
packaging utility which enables system administrators to create and
manage Windows Installer (MSI) files easily and efficiently. [PRWEB
Jun 4, 2005]
Grok Description matches for Flash Interface Design Made Simple
GrokA matches for Flash Interface Design Made Simple
Flash Interface Design Made Simple
