Maxvoltar

¶ 1 day with the Magic Mouse

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:45:59 GMT

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit obsessed with Apple hardware, especially their mice. So you can imagine me going crazy like a 16 year old schoolgirl when they released the latest new member to their family of rodents: The Magic Mouse.

My scientific objective review

Unboxing

It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here! The first thing every self-respecting Apple fan does is grabbing his DSLR and snapping a couple of unboxing pictures:

Unboxing the Magic Mouse (Flickr set)

The packaging is comparable with that of an iPod Nano. A clear plastic shell with some instructions tucked away underneath the mouse. Why did they need so much sticky tape?

First impressions

Unboxed, it feels a bit heavy. I like my mice that way, so this doesn’t bother me, but I can imagine a lot of people complaining about the weight. The design is stunning, and I especially love the use of aluminum for the sides and bottom part. It’s also really, really flat. It’s about a third in height compared to a Logitech MX. Getting used to it, I will.

Software

When you activate the mouse and connect it to your Mac, you can only move the cursor and click. To get access to all features, you’ll need to do an update (Apple logo top left of your screen > Software Update…). Yes, you’ll need to reboot your system. I’ve heard some people complaining about this, but it isn’t just a driver you’re installing. More on that later.

Stop drooling, start using

Just realized I hadn’t rebooted my Mac in 3 weeks… All set? Let’s find ourself a nice long webpage to test the scrolling. Or should I call it stroking? Surprise, it doesn’t scroll like a regular mouse, it scrolls like an iPhone! (sans the rubbery band effect when reaching the end of the canvas) My God this is epic! Let me tell you that once you’ve scrolled like this, you don’t ever want to scroll “the olde way” again. It’s really handy when you write code. Just give it a whirl, and place a finger on the top when you reach where you needed to be. Another advantage is that you can scroll where you want on the mouse. I tested, and it seems that the tactile receptors go from the front all the way up to the Apple logo.

This new way of scrolling is probable the reason you needed to reboot your Mac. It works in all applications, so I guess they needed to do more than just “install a driver”.

Back/forth

The 2 finger swipe is… odd. I don’t think of it every time I navigate back to a previous web page, and still catch myself using the backspace key or Safari buttons for it. Gonna give this some more time.

What’s that feeling?

After a day of using this magical mouse, my hand feels strange, and I realize I’m not using the muscles I used before to operate this mouse. Might sound strange, but that’s the only way I can explain it. Two options:

This mouse sucks and it’s giving me instant RSI.
All my other mice sucked, and I’ve been handling them all wrong for years.

The Apple fanboy in me says it’s option 2…

Conclusion

Was this mouse worth all the hype? Totally! Yes, the design is smoother that the bottom of a newborn, and, yes, Apple did a great job orchestrating the world wide let’s-deliver-it-all-on-the-same-day action. But honestly, the multi-touch top shell is pure genius. I expect a lot of other mouse-making companies to jump on this ship as fast as possible.

I do miss not being able to open Exposé or go to desktop view with it. Compared to the Mighty Mouse, this mouse doesn’t has squeeze buttons on the site, and you can’t click in the middle. Quick fix: Go to System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces > Exposé. There you can configure Active Screen Corners which let you trigger Exposé and desktop view.

Did I mention it doesn’t has a nipple that can get stuck?

What are you waiting for? Go, go to your nearest Apple store and buy it!

Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:07:37 GMT

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.

Derek Powazek goes on a bit of a rant about SEO, but he’s right on the money.

Which brings us, finally, to the One True Way to get a lot of traffic on the web. It’s pretty simple, and I’m going to give it to you here, for free:

Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.

Also read his follow up: SEO FAQ. Good stuff!

∞

Flickr! It’s made of people!

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:12:18 GMT

You can now tag people in photos on Flickr, you know, like Facebook does, but better (example). 2 remarks:

You can only tag people who have a Flickr account
I hope Fraser updates FlickrExport with this new toy :)

∞

100,000 Users And So Can You

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:46:39 GMT

Spencer Fry on the history of Carbonmade. It’s incredible to see how far they’ve come as a non-funded company. For those paying close attention, you might notice his blog got a fresh coat of paint ;)

∞

Getting to No

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:42:41 GMT

Greg Hoy gives you a list of red flags you can encounter with clients in on of the best articles on A List Apart recently.

Years ago, when I first started noticing these signs, I’d often ignore them or say, “They won’t be this way when we start working together.”

Oh yes they will. Bank on it.

Be on the lookout for these classic signs that can lead to Costco-sized bottles of antacid.

∞

Singletasking

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:37:22 GMT

What was that noise? Have I done this? I should remember to do that. I wonder if I have any e-mails? Are there any updates to my iPhone apps? Has anyone posted on Twitter recently?

Each new ‘thing’ you discover is like a reward for your brain – well done!, it says, you checked for a thing, and you found one!. And so you check again. And again, and again.

Ever read an article and thought it was you they were describing? Tim 2.0, right there.

In all seriousness: We all suck at multitasking (yes ladies, you too), and this article shows you why, and how you can fix it.

∞

Typotheque Web Font Service

Tim Van Damme — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:20:58 GMT

After Typekit, Typotheque Web Font Service is the second service you can use to embed quality fonts on your website. After a quick look around, it seems their pricing strategy and the way of embedding is a bit smarter than Typekit’s. Of course, I’ll need to play around with this :) There’s also a quick demonstration video. (via)

∞

¶ Stick to your brand

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:03:38 GMT

“Are you a supporter of the Republicans in the US?” is a question a lot of people ask me concerning my choice of an elephant as my logo/branding for Made by Elephant. “No” is my default answer, as I know close to nothing about politics. This has actually made me think of changing the name and logo.

But I won’t. Why? Because people know me for my elephant, and I don’t care being associated with a group of politicians, or a brand of toys, or even shoes. I love my elephant! Brands take a while to establish, and in the enormous world of the web, having people recognize your logo or name has more value than being on the first page of Google results for “webdesign”.

Which brings me to this…

Web Standardistas

A while ago, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson from Web Standardistas sent me a free copy of “HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions: A Web Standardistas’ Approach” [associates links: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk] and kindly asked me if I could write a review of it. I agreed, but as usual, time didn’t allow me to keep my promise, and although I was thoroughly impressed with the book, paying projects took over and I didn’t have time to write the review.

If you want proof of how good the book is, check out this review by Jon Tan, a review by Lee Munroe or the 5-star ratings on Amazon.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from these reviews. Jon Tan states:

HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions is the missing primer of web design.

Every design school on the planet should make HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions a required textbook. As well as a perfect primer for students, there’s many a formally-trained graphic designer, or self-taught web designer, who might find it useful. I recommend it to you.

Lee Munroe, one of Christopher and Nicklas’s graduates, writes:

There are two approaches you can take to learning how to build websites.

Learn how to build websites

Learn how to build websites the right way, aka the Web Standardistas’ way

Amongst the book’s many five star reviews at Amazon, there are recurring themes:

I reckon this will quickly become a university standard introduction to web design and the first port of call for any aspiring designer.

Clearly written and with an almost zealous approach to best practice, this book is equally at home on the bookshelf of the student, beginner or seasoned pro wanting a sanity check every now and again.

Pause.

We exchanged a few emails last week and they mentioned that they’ve been invited to write another book for friends of ED on ‘Beginning HTML5 and CSS3’.

Christopher and Nicklas are keen to brand the book as another Web Standardistas’ venture, building on the success of their first book, their recent appearance on Carsonified’s FOWD Tour and forthcoming workshop at Build Conference (all under the banner of “The Web Standardistas”). However, the publishers weren’t sure about branding the follow up as “A Web Standardistas’ book”.

That’s the reason I’m writing this article: People know “The Web Standardistas”; people talk about “The Web Standardistas”, people refer to Christopher and Nicklas as “The Web Standardistas”. As a publishing company, why wouldn’t you want to release a follow-up book under a well-established brand name?

Building up a brand is a process of blood, sweat and tears. You’d be an idiot for throwing it out the window. Stick with it.

I promise this was the first and last time I talked about branding. Before you know, I might be talking buzzwords non-stop.

Designing the CannyBill home page

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:49:13 GMT

Andy is doing another live redesign. These are great to follow, and give you a behind the scenes look you only expect from reality television. Bonus: Relly Annett-Baker is doing the same with the copy for CannyBill.

∞

Consistent PNG quality across browsers

Tim Van Damme — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:06:56 GMT

Set up once, forget.

∞

The Rule of High School

Tim Van Damme — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:51:38 GMT

[…] the winners are the ones who don’t take it too seriously and understand what they’re trying to accomplish. Get stuck in the never ending drama (worrying about what irrelevant people think) and you’ll never get anything done.

∞

Flickr2Twitter

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:37:24 GMT

If you’re a fan of simply emailing pictures from your iPhone to Flickr, you’ll love this: You can now email pictures from your iPhone (or any other device) to Flickr, and have it posted on Twitter automatically. In my address book, I now have 2 emails for Flickr: Upload, and upload and post to Twitter. Bonus: Short Flc.kr links. (via [dutch])

∞

¶ The broken watch

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:07:01 GMT

Funny story:

A guy’s watch stopped working, and his wife takes it to the local jeweler. Jeweler tells the wife the watch is broken and she should buy a new one. Wife goes home with a catalog of watches. Once home, guy replaces the battery of the watch, and suddenly, it works again. Guy posts a tweet:

Juwelier [censored] in Tienen is een schurk: zegt tegen Ingrid dat horloge stuk is, terwijl ik ze thuis “repareer” met nieuwe batterij.

Translated:

Jeweler [censored] in Tienen is a fraud: Tells Ingrid [the wife] the watch is broken, while I can “fix” it at home by placing a new battery.

Tweet gets indexed by Google, the jeweler notices it’s the 3rd result when Googling for Juwelier [censored], and he calls the cops to make a complaint. Guy gets a notice from the cops to remove the tweet, or legal steps would be taken. Guy tries contacting the jeweler directly, but he refuses any contact. Guy removes tweet and writes a blogpost about it (not mentioning the jeweler’s name).

And then, the shit hit the fan.

I think every Belgian Twitter user started tweeting about the story, many not censuring the jeweler’s name. The Belgian media follows Twitter very close, and within a day, the story was featured on all mayor Belgian newspaper websites.

I think this is a perfect example of “the old way” of doing business, of people not understanding that although very young, the internet has more power than any of us can imagine. What the jeweler should’ve done was contacting the unhappy client, and talking about it mano-a-mano. With a simple apology, this could all have been fixed. Now, everyone in Belgium reading the news knows about the watch that wasn’t malfunctioning, but the jeweler that was.

@font-face and performance

Tim Van Damme — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:21:41 GMT

I switched this site from Axel (through @font-face) to a native font-stack, because 1) it was too narrow to read fluently, and 2) it took too long to load the typeface. (via)

∞

Microsoft forced to give their user the choice between 12 browsers

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:17:24 GMT

∞

Exclusive: Pink Danger leaks from Microsoft's Windows Phone

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:09:49 GMT

[…] According to that tipster, the project is in disarray, with “no braintrust that understands how to build a product.” Efforts to build a third party software platform for Pink are also in trouble because “team members don’t know how to get it done,” the source claimed, with remaining employees complaining that they “hate the product” they’re working on and feel like it was “never intended to ship,” but that it only existed to “challenge [the Windows Mobile 7 team] and upset them into competing.”

This made my day. Like a dying star, Microsoft will eventually collapse.

∞

¶ Transfer photos and videos wireless from your iPhone to your ‘puter with Dropbox

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:42:18 GMT

Every time you take a picture or video with your iPhone, and want to transfer it to your computer, you need to go through these steps:

Go to Mac
Search for iPhone cable
Connect iPhone to Mac with said cable
Cross fingers iTunes doesn’t choke iPhoto with it’s monstrous syncing process
Open iPhoto
Click on “Import all” or “Import Selected”
Wait
Done, you can now use the picture or video

This has been bugging me ever since the iPhone got released. If Microsoft can achieve wireless syncing—even though through wifi only—why can’t Apple?

Then came this tweet from Jon Hicks:

The Dropbox iPhone client is available for free [iTunes], and a must-download!

So, how do I use Dropbox for wireless transferring?

It’s easy, but let me explain:

Open the Dropbox app on your iPhone, press the camera icon top right, and select a photo or video with the option you prefer
Let it upload (shouldn’t take more than 5 seconds for a photo if you’re on wifi)
Ta-da!

By the time you get to your computer, the file you selected will be waiting in your Dropbox folder, ready to be used.

I like simple apps like this.

(if you haven’t already signed up for Dropbox, please use this referral link, which will give me an extra 250 MB. I love you too!)

Own Every Aspect of The Design

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:42:34 GMT

That’s what they are — design decisions. From the subject line of an email, to the titles of the pages, these are all aspects of the user interface of the site. Even if elements, such as a contact form email, are essentially back-office.

Drew McLellan waking us designers up again.

∞

The Meaning of Photoshop

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:29:52 GMT

[…] earlier this month fifty politicians put a law in front of French parliament under which digitally manipulated images would bear the somewhat rueful label “Retouched photograph aimed at changing a person’s physical appearance.” The goal is essentially one of public health and consumer expectation: don’t try looking like this at home.

∞

A big-assed post about Fireworks

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:16:53 GMT

Jon Hicks explains why he loves Fireworks, why he hates Fireworks, and most important, why he uses Fireworks. In a big-assed post.

∞