Google approach to the web is to rank everything. But on Twitter we all are equal to each other, we have the same number of characters to write a message (140, remember?), the number of followers doesn’t matter, time when you join Twitter is not important, lists or favourites won’t help either. So, we don’t need a rank system on Twitter.

Dave Winer votes for ranking on his blog. But, what we really need is an exclusion system. First, we need to exclude spam. Then exclude retweets and repositon the original tweet instead of last retweet with the number of retweets for a possible importance level. Favourites could also matter in ranking tweets up, but again, keeping them sorted by dated is more important.

After all that being said, he thinks that will be impossible possible to rank real time information, but it won’t be that clever.

But since always dreams don’t manage to become reality, I decided to make this small collection public. There are over 200 covers right now and sorted by the artist name. I have one small request, if you like Dropbox please use this link to register for an account; it gives both of us 250 MB extra space.

My favourite covers, and albums, are Sneaky Sound System’s—an Australian & electronic band—because of clever use of patterns and typography.

After all that being said, he will keep on listening “Dirge” by life Death in Vegas.

I’m a person that cares about every little detail, pixel you might say, and when the effect of abundance makes its appearance, you want to go back to basics for new start. The problem with technology and with web applications is that they are changing too fast. Yesterday you singed up for a service that you enjoyed and tomorrow that thing is completely different. Why doesn’t anybody cares about when I joined their web application (software) and provide me the very same experience? I’ll do like that. For example if Textpattern will change the user experience in the next version I won’t make the switch, because for me usability is what I’m getting used to.

The First Idea

You now may ask: how the heck this guy sees the future of online contacts? Well, a while ago I had a very interesting idea and it sounded like: @lucianmarin needs (or wants to make) a site that bookmarks people and their online accounts (Flickr, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) including latest activity. What I wanted to say is that we need a piece of software that facilitates not only the new way of communication (you fill a profile and I subscribe to it) nor the old way (I fill a profile for you in my address book), but actually a mutual connection where both you and me fill a “profile”. I’m calling this people bookmarking.

HP is doing the same old thing one more time with its mobile social network. My idea works different, let’s say you are Leo Laporte and you just spoke with Mike Arrington. After that you can fill in his profile a comment line “What a jerk, I will never spoke with him again” (it was for real). Mike Arrington can check what others said about him and founds the line. The beautiful part about this is that Leo Laporte will keep this in his web application data, and Mike will see it only when they are linked together. So basically, no link, no fun and no public embarrassment for neither of them.

The Second Idea

Oh man, this should be much more fun. I bet everyone knows about blogroll, that’s what makes your blog a little bit more “social”. Since the beginning of EVNO authors where listed different, they had a picture, their name and a status. That’s pretty static, you might say. But what if this was interactive? Like a distributed social network where everyone can hook up, if they have a site (blog) or they are already on a social network.

By the way, I got a new phone, it’s a dumb phone, but it has 1GB internal memory with microSD option and a very nice music player. I liked Opera Mini on Sony Ericsson K8OOi (this 3 years old phone has a better camera than the new iPhone 3GS; I had to say it); and I hope it will stay the same beautiful piece of software in the future.

After all that being said, he admits that this is a protest against social media stupidity abundance.

My answer to my own question is “No”. Let me explain myself. My mind can’t understand the term of God. It just can’t, the term is too big. I can’t draw something on paper when I’m thinking about God. I can’t feel his presence when I’m praying, and I’m pretty sure that even an atheist did pray at least once in his lifetime.

But, I sense an energy when I pick a rock, I hear something profound when I’m in a forest, I feel a vibration when I’m talking to someone else and I know you’re feeling the same. Sometimes it isn’t a good vibration/energy, but it is there. What is this thing that makes all other things connect and the way they are? Can I call it God and be done with it? I think I don’t have other choice for the moment, but one day I hope I will have the chance to find out what it is.

Another thing that I’m thinking of is Universe. I believe is finite, not only in space, but also in time; and it’s not expanding. Actually, this was my first existential question at age of four and it sounded like: “What’s beyond Universe?” (Sorry, Mom). I had an answer right away: “It’s must be finite, it has a margin and beyond it is something black, uncomprehensible”. In 9th grade I found a way to demonstrate myself that it was indeed finite; that was when I learned about mathematical induction. Probably beyond Universe is antimatter, but who knows exactly…

After all that being said, he wants to sleep dream on. It’s 6:44 AM. Over.

960px width wasn’t that smart

Why 960? Because is a number that has lots of divisors. That’s it? Yes, and a supposable grid system behind it. Hmm, that’s not enough, since complex grid systems can be applied to any surface. What if we design like we have done it for print? Let’s say we chose a paper format, A4 for example, then a DPI, 96 in this case. What’s the width in pixels for this paper format in portrait orientation? 794 pixels. What we gonna do with this number? Well, you can accommodate this size to articles then design everything around it, sidebars, menus, etc. I used this technique when I designed The Journalist last year, one of the popular WordPress themes out there. So, basically every article that was formated in The Journalist can be printed right away, without needing to reformat every single line ¹.

Cameron Moll asks what’s beyond 960px. I suggest using the same A4 format but at a different DPI, maybe 150, so the resulting width will be 1240px. Also, we can increase the paper size to A3, keeping the same 96 DPI and getting a width of 1124px. We should keep in mind that A3 is more suitable for newspapers, where A4 is used for magazines.

Golden ratio isn’t that perfect

Golden ratio value is almost 1.61803399. When I first heard about it I thought that: “Well, if I use this, then everything I do can hold water.” This happens to be true in some cases, but when comes to design an interface things change. There are some aspect ratios currently used for framing: 16:9 (derived from 4*4:3*3) for TV screen, 16:10 for computer displays and the traditional 4:3. All of these ratios are bad because they don’t use prime numbers as their base. Prime numbers can lead to better multiplication, since 3 can have more multiples than 4 or 9 in a defined numeric range. There is an exception for 3:2 used in photography but it can’t cropped easily for wide screen and it loses the purpose of a golden ratio.

After thinking like I did above I came up with 5:3 aspect ratio, primarily because the value was close to golden ratio and secondly because both, 5 and 3, are prime integers. On Nostalgia — name of the current design of my site — I used 5:3 ratio for adjusting menu, sub-menu and title line heights ², not only for sizing images at 500×300 pixels. I suggest using this ratio for adjusting dimensions between article bodies and sidebars, between headers and menus, or other things (between good and evil if you want to).

Interaction outside the chrome

We are used for years to draw a sandbox at any convenient size called layout and play inside it without thinking about nothing else except a computer monitor. Things have changed, we have to bring the same content — that should look, feel and interact in same manner — from mobile devices to laptop displays, netbooks, televisions, game consoles, even paper, and God knows what other devices will we invent in the future. We have to use ratios and formats that can accommodated all of these. So, why not use the international paper formats like A3, A4, A5, B5, etc.?

After all that being said, he recognize that he likes loves math.

¹ That’s in theory, in practice things can change.

² I was surprised to see that Google used golden ratio for tab bar in Chrome when it first appeared in September, 2008 like I did one month earlier.