October 2007 Archives

Whenever we get proficiency in any system, the user interface is crucial on the process. After all, it's through the user interface that the system can be used.

This is why it's important to have the software adapted to use the interface of the system in use. This is what FireFox is aiming with its next iteratition, where the interface for the Windows version will have the interface for both XP and Vista, and the version for Mac OS X will have the interface made specially for 10.5 Leopard.

It may be read on a article published in The Firefox 3 Visual Refresh: System Integration

A phrase on that article puts it in a way I could not say better:

a unified cross platform UI results in applications that at best feel foreign everywhere, and at worst don’t even feel like real applications

I think that's why people dislike RealPlayer so much!

This guy was travelling going from right to left on the photo, when for some reason he left the road, turned around 180 degrees and stopped just after the manhole pipe:

He actually was reborn!

Look at the complete photo:

If you like to investigate new software, is a Macintosh user, is going to be a early adopter of Mac OS X Leopard, and need a new machine, this is the time!

macoshints.com has annouced a contest where the best hint on Leopard will win a brand new aluminum 20 inch iMac.

I really need a new computer, and it doesn't have to be an iMac (although it would be great if I got one), but...

I don't have a computer to install Leopard, so I cannot dig into the OS to see if I find any hint that could be submited. If I get a new computer before the deadline I'll be looking into every corner of the OS trying to find a hint.

Writing in English is not as easy as it seems to many people, mostly those who don't have English as their first language. That's my case, and I have more than often strugled with some words that I know but, at the same time, I mix with other similar words.

This site, Common Errors en English, came to rescue people like me.

I think even people who natively speak English may benefit from this site. It has loads of words that may be confused, and explains very well the use of each one.

Recommended

I am always amazed with satellite images. I have seen lots of them in the last years, since my job has to do with Geographical Information Systems, and stellite images are one of the main source for GIS data. It never stopped pleasing me looking at the beautiful images that earth obeserving satellites as LandSat, Terra's Aster/Modis, and other produce.

One of such imager is this one from Uvs Nuur Basin in Mongolia. I have signed to the RSS feed from Earth Observatory site, and every week I am pleased to see some of the most interesting views of our planet. Once I see a nice image, I go to one of the best sites I know, and try to see if there are more interesting views around, just before trying a flyover using Google Earth.

For the lake cited above, I saw in Google Maps that there are other lakes, even more interesting than the first. Both of them can be seen in the map below (teh lake from above's site is the one on the left on the map below):

I strongly advise anyone to sign Earth Observatory's RSS feed. Not only for the images they provide, bat also becase it's a great source of information regarding the small marble that we live on.

Ars Technica has just published an article citing a dutch consumer protection organization that warns computer users to stick with Windows XP for the time being, and to even insist on downgrading new computers if they come with Windows Vista pre-installed.

Is Windows Vista that bad?

I haven't used it extensively yet, mostly because I use XP on my job. My only contact with Vista is when I go to my sister's and use her computer.

It doesn't seem too bad to me, because my sister's computer is Vista ready, and it came with it installed. I had it upgraded from Vista Home Basic to Vista Business, and what pisses me most is UAC. This "feature" is annoying, to say the least.

But it seems to me that Vista is really a problem for Microsoft, and a problem that they didn't see coming. In another article, this time from Computer World where Steve Ballmer is said to have been confronted by the interviewer when she said she installed Vista on her computer justo to have is downgraded to XP two days later.

According to the article, Steve Ballmer puts that several corporate customers have found value on the new operating system, and it has been updated since it's launch so that device drivers missing during launch time were added to it.

It's clear that in time the vast majority of the users that use XP today will eventually migrate to Vista. Microsoft would like it to happen as soon as possible, but it seems that it will take much longer than they would like.

Among other sites, one I like a lot is Mac Dev Center, from O'Reilly Network, which focus on the development of Macintosh apps. One of the columnists at Mac Dev Center is François Joseph de Kermadec, whose home page I couldn't get to display anything else but the first page -- maybe I'm missing something here!

At Mac Dev Center François writes about several things Mac that, most of the times are interesting. Not that I think that he is always right, but he writes well, and has good insights about lots of things, like this article about the color to be used on the desktop .

Most people I know never thinks much about it! Maybe because most people I know use Windows computers, and, as such, usually the front most app is maximized when in use. That means that the desktop picture (or desktop color for that matter) of choice is almost never apparent. Having said that, it's funny to think what people use as desktop backdrops.

I, for one, love the Mac OS X feature that allows the user to choose automatically, on every login, whick picture to use from a folder full of pictures. I have even managed to find a little program that makes the same thing on my Windows XP machine at work (John's Background Switcher.

To me there is very little problem to use a picture desktop, with lots of color and very busy. As I said above, I'm no different from most Windows users, and my aps are generally used in a maximized window. When I am at my Mac, at home I don't like to have my windows covering all my desktop, but, at the same time, I almost never use programs that would be hurt by a cluttered desktop (something like a image analysis and creation program).

I think I'll start using the bland desktop color that François suggests as a test, to see if the strain on my eyes is less than wht I am used to with the desktops I have been using for a long time.

Laptop and notebook users are permanently at risk of data theft, mostly because this kind of computers are easily stolen. The reason is simply the one of the laws of data encryption, as put by Rich Mogull: if the data moves physically or virtually you need encryption.

Since encryption is a nice security measure (although not enough by itself, because it's only a tool in the security box), modern operating systems provide it out of the box. In the case of Mac OS, it is called File Vault, and is a home folder encryption feature. Rich's experiences with it are described in an article, and that's something that every notebook user should think about setting up.

Although the use of encryption is a good measure to prevent burglar eyes looking at private data, one must not forget that it is useless against malicious software running in the context of the user. One good article dealing with such subject is this one, in the same site as the above mentioned articles.

I have just found an interesting site, where the author (Garr Reynold) writes about the art of creating and giving presentations. The site is called Presentation Zen, and the first article I read on it regards the differences on presentations addressed by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

I read the article with great interest. Mr Reynold explain a lot of mistakes that people do when addressing presentations. Bill Gates makes most of the mistakes listed, like putting too much information in a single slide, but, as Mt Reynold says, he may do that and no one will ever notice.

But, for me and you, these errors are a matter of giving a good presentation or a sleepy one.

Rich Mogull is a specialist in information security who writes a blog mostly about security aspects of computer usage. In his blog he wrote about software updates, in an article named Lessons On Software Updates: Microsoft and Apple Both Muck It Up, where he cites the errors made by both Microsoft and Apple regarding updates.

According to Mogull, the best approach to software update may be described by five rules, that if followed should please everyone involved in the process. These rules are as follows:

1. All updates should be optional
2. Don’t bundle security updates with functionality updates
3. Don’t break unrelated applications
4. If you’re an application, don’t change the underlying platform
5. Clearly notify customers what features/functions will change with the update

It's worth reading the whole article.

Fraser Speirs, a programmer/photographer from Glasgow, Scotland, has written an interesting article comparing Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom.

While I don't use any of those software (not that I don't want to, but that I can't due to lack of a computer at home), it was enlightening to read the article. I have thought that Aperture had a better approach to workflow than the one embraced by Lightroom.

Anyway, the article above gets to the point that I've been saying about software in general:

The best software is the one you know how to use better!