Posts tagged user interfaces

notes: buzzing around

Feb 17th

Posted by SEV in staying.interested

No comments

Google’s latest experiment – Buzz – has been launched to the world recently, with varying degrees of appreciation, hate, irritation and all the reactions that every new social idea is greeted with. Personally, it is a social media outlet/inlet that I can get on board with – seeing as how it integrates nicely into my existing Gmail/Google experience. It has its caveats though.. features/glitches/annoyances that I wish they had ironed out before getting it out the door:

, , , , ,

personas-ization

Nov 5th

Posted by SEV in staying.general

1 comment

Somehow Personas is making me regress. Back to a time when I first started using Firebird 0.7, and hacked my way into theming it (the Firefox of those days did not look pretty – it looked like what it was: a quick, nifty version of the Mozilla Suite Browser). And then with Firefox 0.9, official themes could be easier downloaded from the official Firefox site. My only irritation being that you could not easily preview them. Or use them (restarting was required, as far as I remember).

Worst of all, such themes would screw up in some tiny detail.. given that by this time Firefox was a permanently opened application in my Windows – the tiny detail would eventually grow to a huge gigantic flaw. One I just could not miss. It might be just the lack of theming the edge of a particular menu. But that was enough. Yeah, I know. Big huge non-existent problem.

And so, I quit theming. Indeed I scorned the idea. Who would do something like that? I even quit theming my Thunderbird. They seemed mere frivolous activities, for someone who did not appreciate the true utilitarian look of the browser. Eventually my entire computer would be regressed to its bare-bones look, grey and blue windows and all. As simple as you can get. Stark. Snappy.

Dull?

With UberT, theming developed into a challenge. How far down can you tweak XP to look like another OS? Longhorn (now Vista) previews were coming out, and just as quickly being made into themes. Flyakite OS X for the pure Mac experience. Indeed, I remember at the WWW2006 conference everyone was puzzled how my “Mac” was behaving like an XP. My Firefox? Got a Safari theme. But I remember my constant search to improve its look – none of the ones available were just quite good enough.

Yeah, I know. Continuing big huge non-existent problem.

Since I moved to Vista, though, such endeavors have ceased. Some amount of basic customization seemed enough. Wallpapers, task-bar/window color (always black!), transparency. It appeared as though Windows had evolved perfectly in this one aspect to fulfill our need for customization. Meanwhile Gmail added themes, as did iGoogle and so on and forth.

And Firefox remained in its default form. No more big huge non-existent problem! Even if UberT saw one and insisted that Glasser was the greatest thing for Firefox and Aero ever.

Now we’re at Windows 7. Themes are more neat than ever before. Nifty and pretty. One-click install into Windows from the site. Yes, yes, my Firefox remained its usual default self. Until now.

I had heard of Personas (during the Fx 3 release) but had never really paid any attention to it. Until I installed Fx 3.6 Beta. Personas built-in. Which I discovered by accident while reading the release notes.

The simplicity boggles the mind. Go to site. Hover to preview. Click to install. No restart. On-the-fly theme switching. And it styles nothing more than the window itself. I’m not irritated that the developer didn’t get the menu color quite right.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Now that I read this post in retrospect, it seems like the silliest thing to post about.

But remember Rule #32 from Zombieland: Enjoy the little things.

So here I am.

, ,

why linux is not for human beings

Nov 4th

Posted by SEV in staying.general

2 comments

having spent 3 hours of my life in trying to get a dual-monitor setup + compiz on ubuntu 8.10, i have come to the conclusion that it is simply impossible.

[note: this is on a machine with 2 X300SE ATI cards which are connected to a dell (1280x1024) and a sony (1024x768).]
observations:

  • ATI+ubuntu = configuration hell. always has been and always will be. make it the seventh hell of hells when you add a dual-head setup into the mix. nvidia (from all the forums) is apparently much nicer.
  • ubuntu natively picks up my monitors + resolutions. impressive.
  • compiz appears to need the restricted ATI drivers to even work, on this latest iteration. once they are in there, it just works (on a single screen setup). beautifully. memories of spending 5 hours grappling with xorg.conf are sweet mythology.
  • if one ditches compiz, and sticks to the open-source drivers, there’s still no scope of managing to ensure that different monitors run at different resolutions, and all work together to form a single desktop. the sony seems like the screen is extending way beyond the actual monitor with icons somewhere in the air above it.
  • the ATI catalyst GUI sucks. cannot set up monitors at different resolutions, does not understand how to arrange monitors, ends up setting up the 2 monitors as a single LARGE widescreen, $^%#^&^$…
  • default for all graphics configs (initially) is to clone outputs on both screens all the time. why?
  • due to this lack of configurability, i have to either downgrade res to 1024×768 on both and have wonky compiz effects, or not have compiz at all.
  • i somehow managed to enable a 2560×1024 (don’t ask) screen expanding across both monitors, to find that my cards only support upto 2048×2048 (ok, this is slightly invalid, but i was highly frustrated by this point anyway). ergo, compiz still won’t work.
  • ubuntu without compiz effects seems dinky to use, and somehow extremely non-intuitive without all the flashiness.

now, while i’ve always been a fan of the terminal and all the cool commands that you pull out of the hat in linux… why isn’t there even an alt-tab command in linux? or any apparently simple way to set it up? compiz has ultra-funky features, and ubuntu has…nothing? what sense does that make?

incidentally, i had to reboot after an update (first time ever, for a non-kernel update). nasty memory of windows rebooting in the middle of my experiments ensued.

i’m impressed with the ease of setup. ubuntu has come streets ahead since i used it last in 7.10. lack of user-interface customization tells. big time.

solution: back to winxp with ultramon installed. such simplicity. maybe i will now move to winvista-32 or 64 on this machine, just for the heck of it.

crossover works great though, installed office 2007 directly on ubuntu. very cool. too bad the one thing keeping me on windows is the customization, rather than office.

, ,

chrome-d: disappointing

Sep 2nd

Posted by SEV in staying.thoughts

2 comments

the net is abuzz with the latest google move: google chrome. people are trying to figure out why ? what ? how ?

i type this post from chrome, and i see: a combo of ie8 and firefox3. to go. with bits of safari and opera all thrown in. even this review is just thrown together from initial impressions.

disclaimer: i firmly believe that firefox 3 is the best browser around.

back to the show.

we have speed dial. we have the ‘omnibar’. we have privacy. we have cool animations when you move tabs out of windows, for urls on pages, previews, search etc. we have download managers. we have auto-bookmarking. we have combined features from 3 different browsers which attempt to integrate together. and they do, somewhat decently.

however, i don’t like the philosophy.

, , , ,

interface renewed

Jul 8th

Posted by SEV in staying.general

4 comments

for the last 5 days, i’ve been on the ‘new’ microsoft interface. one simple comparison:

newie.jpg oldie.JPG
IE

newexplorer.jpg oldexplorer.JPG
Explorer

newoffice.jpg oldoffice.JPG
Office

having followed the classic menus of ‘File’, ‘Edit’,'View’ over all their interfaces for the last 12 years, microsoft went ahead and completely revamped their interface. those buttons are hidden away, far from the human eye.

sleekness is one thing, i wonder which genius decided that those menus detracted from the UI…

, ,

ubuntu, my love

Mar 28th

Posted by SEV in staying.general

2 comments

i have seen more than one post about the brilliance of ubuntu – the linux revolution.. and then of course, the geek in me was blown away by the multitude of videos showcasing beryl and xgl.

and so,

screenshot1.png

plus of course,

screenshot2.png

thus exists one of my workstations. it is a matter of time, methinks, before i need it on my laptop.
aero can go suck ass.. triple their effects and you get to about the basics of beryl.

as far as ubuntu itself goes, i’ve used version 3 last. version 6.10 is pretty damned awesome as a step up. simple setup, easy updates, a little googling to get the right setup for beryl, and voila !

even taking into account that i’m a little more fearless than the standard end-user of windows.. ubuntu certainly seems to be on the right path to be a competitor.

simply put, wow. the windows install on this pc might languish a while..

kubuntu, though, needs a lot of work. even if kde is way cooler than gnome.

and i’m now a vi supporter.

too many thoughts, too many things, too much fun. i’m off again.

, ,
« Older Entries