UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

Category: Computers & Technology

Zeldman on Outlook 2010

I’ll take Jeffrey Zeldman over Jakob Nielsen any day. (Case in point.) And Zeldman’s criticism today of Microsoft’s inexplicable use of the Word HTML rendering engine in Outlook 2010 despite IE8’s genuine efforts to become standards compliant is true to form. A quote worth repeating in its entirety, re-tweeting (if it weren’t over 140 characters), and having tattooed on your favorite body part:

Big companies love these fictions where one part of the company “pays” another, and accountants love this stuff as well, for reasons that make Jesus cry out anew.

25 June 2009
Arial vs. Helvetica, Part II

Here we have another exhibit in the battle of Arial and Helvetica: two signs posted side by side, and obviously designed with some intention of consistency. Sort of. Their sizes are different, their shapes are different, and, of course, one is in Helvetica (the left) and one is in Arial (the right). But someone was clearly trying to make them match, to the best of their limited abilities.

This photo was taken this evening in the west parking garage of the Mall of America, near the Best Buy entrance.

Any guesses on which sign came first? I don’t know myself, but I have a hunch it’s the one on the left. The rounded corners and use of Helvetica suggest the work of a trained designer; the shortcut copycat approach of the sign on the right — sharp corners and Arial, seems characteristic.

I’m pretty sure the No Smoking sign would precede the Authorized Parking Only sign chronologically for logical reasons as well: the concern about misplaced smoking existed long before the concern about misplaced parking at MOA, the latter only becoming a serious issue within the last five years as both IKEA and light rail transit have considerably increased non-mall traffic to the area.

23 June 2009
Copy and paste, now on an iPhone near you
If you don’t own an iPhone, you’ll probably fall into one of three categories regarding the topic of this post:
1. You assume the iPhone already has copy-paste, and are surprised to learn it’s just been added as part of the new iPhone 3.0 software, released today.
2. You think everything Apple makes is overhyped and under-featured, and the prior lack of copy-paste is a perfect example of that.
3. Huh?
But for those of us who do have an iPhone, it’s been a long time coming, and now we can experience it. To understand the philosophy at Apple, and why this feature was previously unavailable, you need to realize that Apple thinks big, and “big picture.” They want the iPhone to be a success for the long haul, and they want to transform the very nature of the smartphone. Deny Apple’s impact if you like, but I think it’s hard to argue that they haven’t done exactly what they set out to do. The iPhone isn’t intended to do everything, and, if you want to tinker with the system, you already know Apple products are not necessarily for you. But what the iPhone does, and does well, is provide a consistent, polished, and intuitive interface, and it uses that interface to deliver a “game-changing” experience.

With that in mind, we can begin to understand why Apple hesitated to offer copy-paste. The iPhone completely breaks from traditional user interfaces in a number of key ways. And if that new interface is going to be a success, it demands a radical rethinking of how certain things work. There simply is no straightforward way of adapting a mouse-centered activity like copy-paste to the touch screen interface. So Apple decided to take their time to get it right.

Did they? I think so. Let’s take a look at how it works.

In the first image, we see the article I was reading — an RSS feed from Brand New, displayed on the Google Reader website in Mobile Safari.

One cool feature the iPhone interface has always had — but that you may not know about — is the magnifying glass. When you’re typing, you can touch and hold your finger on any spot in the text to bring up the magnifying glass, which makes it possible — and easy — to place the cursor in a particular location. Now the magnifying glass appears in text you’re reading as well. As you move it around, it highlights individual words.

When you release your finger on a particular word in the text, the magnifying glass disappears and is replaced with the copy block. Note the blue dots in the upper left and lower right corners. These are your drag points.

When you start dragging, the magnifying “strip” (as I’ll call it) appears, allowing you the same character-level precision as the cursor in the magnifying glass when editing text. Let go, and the copy button reappears. Just tap that button to add the highlighted text to the clipboard.

To paste the text (for example, into an email), you use the same touch-and-hold technique to bring up the magnifying glass. When you release, a new set of buttons (like the copy button) appear, allowing you to select, select all, or paste. Tap paste, and your copied text appears.

Overall, it’s pretty good. I’m not the most imaginative when it comes to things like this, so I would never have envisioned this solution, nor can I immediately think of ways to improve it. It feels perhaps a bit clunkier than I would like — and appears to still be a bit buggy; when I tried to recreate the process I had gone through taking these screenshots, I found the magnifying glass stubbornly refused to appear.

Assuming the problems I had getting copy-paste to work were a fluke (maybe a restart is in order), I would give Apple an A- for this implementation. If it is in fact buggy and not quite ready for prime time, I’d drop that to a B+. Still, if I had to come up with a solution for this problem myself, it would be worthy of an F-.

(Yes, I know there’s no such thing as an F-. You don’t need to point that out.)
17 June 2009
I have a “Hunch” that I’m an Apple fanboy
Daring Fireball tipped me off to an interesting new site, Hunch.

Hunch is a site to help you make decisions. Naturally the first question I tried out with it was one of Gruber’s suggestions: Should I buy an Apple iPhone or a Palm Pre?

It became pretty clear to me as I answered the dispassionate, objective questions, what the answer was going to be. And I was right:

However, the reality is that I own an iPhone, and have scarcely even considered looking at a Pre, even for the sake of simple curiosity. So while the questions Hunch asked seemed dispassionate and objective, and let’s for the moment assume that they are, the experience leads me to a few questions of my own:
1. Who wrote the questions? And how did they verify the accuracy of their answers?
2. What criteria led them to choose the questions they did? Were there any other suitable questions that were omitted? Do the questions asked reasonably cover the scope of factors that may go into the decision?
3. How are the questions weighted? Assuming they are not weighted at all, should they be? And should the weight of the questions be left to the user, rather than the author?
These are just a few of the many questions not answered by the Hunch experience.

I’m not at all suggesting that the site is a bad idea, or that it’s necessarily poorly implemented. This is just some food for thought on the merits of taking someone else’s advice when making a personal decision. It also reminds us to be wary of fully placing our trust in the ~~All-Powerful Oz~~ Internet. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
15 June 2009
Let me keep stealing your bandwidth, or I’ll sue!

Here we have a message from someone who is, quite possibly, the world’s biggest douchebag:

And just for what it’s worth, I’ve stolen this image the right way: I downloaded it and am serving it from my own site.

I know a bit about bandwidth theft myself, as more than once someone has decided to link directly to either the image, the audio, or both, from my Christmas with Chewbacca page. I’ve since taken actions to prevent direct linking to content from my site, and I encourage other site owners to do the same.

(Credit where credit is due: the trail of the above image led from here to here to here via here.)

Update: After a bit of research, it seems to me that this may be a hoax or an old meme that’s been circulating for years, or both. But regardless, there obviously are people who think this way, even if they may not be so brazen as to threaten legal action, because bandwidth theft is a pretty common occurrence.

12 June 2009