下手の横好き世界２

You

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:12:16 -0700

Hey, it just occurred to me that Vox does the right thing when it comes to pronouns in user interfaces! Instead of muddling about and mixing up the way it refers to the user (like Windows' "My Documents" versus "Which type of installation do you want"), you are always you. These days even Apple gets this wrong sometimes.

...And then I looked down past the composition area for this post and I see "Share this post on my Vox blog", "...with my groups", and "on my other blog". So yeah, nevermind.

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MacBook Air: It's Bairly Thair

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:09:37 -0800

So, I've had my MacBook Air for ten days. My impressions are, well, that it does everything I used my MacBook for. Once the thing is open and I'm using it, my experience is essentially the same as it was before. Sure, the keys light up, the trackpad is a bit bigger, and there are a couple of differences in the keyboard layout. But the experience is not drastically different.

I don't find myself panicking because I suddenly have need of any of the features that the Air is "missing". No, the main components of a computer that I use are, believe it or not, the keyboard, the trackpad, and the display! The MacBook Air includes all of those and more! It has a processor, and it runs applications. These are the things that I care about.

What's different with the Air, though, is that I can have my keyboard, trackpad, and display with me all the time. I just don't hesitate to bring my bag along anywhere I go, because I know it's going to be a negligible burden. It's also more likely that I'll pick up the Air and pop it open when I'm at home, because the size and weight really make a difference in instant grabability.

Mac OS X already makes sure you have a pretty excellent experience when you're using the machine. The MacBook Air tries to make handling and transporting the device a pleasure, too, so that you're more likely to have access to the usage experience wherever and whenever you are.

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Sparse bundle!

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:08:16 -0800

Wow, I just discovered the "sparse bundle" feature in Mac OS X Leopard. It's a disk image (which you can encrypt), but it only updates the chunks inside it as necessary, so that Time Machine can still back it up efficiently. This is really nice for me, because I keep my Journler database in a big 2-gigabyte encrypted disk image, and if I keep up with my writing schedule Time Machine would back up the whole dang thing every other day. So if you are in a similar situation you should use sparse bundles. Thanks Apple!

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MacBook Air keys pop off just fine

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:53:32 -0800

Rearranging for Dvorak.

photo.jpg

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MacBook Air unboxing

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:31:45 -0800

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C'mon Apple

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:18:27 -0800

"""

iPhone Software

Version 1.1.2

This version of the software includes additional new features, bug fixes and supersedes all previous versions.

"""

Please use the serial comma. Omitting it is asking for trouble.
Please don't start a list of one type of item and then change the type of item partway through. Your sentence seems to say, "...includes additional new features, includes bug fixes, and includes supersedes...".

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Cover Flow's transparency detection

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:29:48 -0800

Mac OS X's new Cover Flow feature seems to be doing some interesting analysis of your icons. Normally a Mac OS X icon has a shadow below it; if the icon were drawn normally, there would be a gap between where the main element of the icon ends and its reflection begins. Instead, Cover Flow apparently analyzes the bottom of your icon, looking for the beginning of pretty opaque pixels, and then cuts off everything below them. In most cases, this results in finding the bottom of the icon's imagery and chopping off some shadow:

TextEdit in CoverFlow

But in other cases, where icons actually use transparency in the icon elements, it can go wrong:

SvnX in CoverFlow

If it weren't for svnX's transparent icon, I never would have realized what was going on to make the reflections match up.

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My Favorite iPhone Detail

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:41:32 -0700

There is a big list of sounds to choose from for when an alarm goes off. If you tap one, the sound starts playing so that you can hear what it sounds like. If you then decide that you like the sound, and tap to go back to the alarm screen, the sound stops playing. But it doesn't just stop dead. It fades out.

Sure, hearing a sound stop dead is not the most jarring experience you could ever have, but it's just a bit unpleasant and unrefined. Someone thought to put in the extra line or two of code to make the sound gradually fade away, like you're stepping away from the sound selection screen and back to the alarm screen, as the two screens slide across the display.

Yeah, iPhone deserves the central position it's claimed in my life: Within the space of 15 minutes I found myself looking up a restaurant, calling the restaurant to make reservations, reading comics online, and timing my banana waffles to crispy perfection.

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Super Everything

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:03:22 -0700

California was fun and refreshing.
Our upstairs neighbors are moving out! Tranquility may yet reside in our home.
My four new Toume Kei comics, including the limited edition Sing “Yesterday” For Me volume 5 with Haru figure, arrived.
My four Phase 7 comics arrived.
My coworkers and I enjoyed our iPhone-waiting experience with a game of Munchkin, plenty of Nintendo DS, comic-book reading, free candy and hot dogs and pizza.
iPhones!! Oh, iPhones for everyone!!
This morning I walked up to the local Apple Genius Bar with one slightly non-functional iPhone, one day old, and one severely distressed MacBook, fourteen months old. I walked away with a brand new iPhone and a brand new MacBook. Super Everything!!

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Macworld, My World

nobody@vox.com(fetjuel) — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:26:40 -0800

Macworld was one of the most enjoyable weeks of my life, I think. At times like this, the best I can do is try to enumerate the excitement:

The main benefit was, of course, meeting the people who use our software, or turning new people on to our software. Person after smiling person came by to say, "You guys rock!", "I didn't know you could do that!", or "What's that cool-looking thing you're using?"
I met all sorts of cool people: power users, noobs, people from around the world who want software that works in their languages, a girl who made an OmniWeb feature request in Japanese, deaf people (one of whom conversed with me in a TextEdit document and was pleased to see that I use Dvorak too), people from dozens of cool companies, people who do cool jobs like user experience design and literary translation. My little business card holder ran out of my own cards and filled up with other people's cards quicky quick.
Spending a whole week with my coworkers tends to cause Face Hurts From Laughing Syndrome. A couple of rousing games of Old Maid with Rachael and Liz were particularly hilarious.
At night I'd relax and play Summon Night on the DS, read The Language Instinct, then have the luxury of falling asleep right away because I'd been doing things all day.
Dinners were fancy, and often involved people whose names I'd been reading on the web for years. Dippin' sauces were plentiful.
I met the person who designed my bag, and she agreed that it should have had a handle, but no one would listen to her. A new version with a handle is coming.
We went to see Children of Men; that movie's got something special going on. I went to see it again a few days later, even though it's tough to get me to go see a movie once.
On the way there and back, I got through a good bit of my 12 Kingdoms novel. I'm pretty proud to be busting through a book of such a significant reading level.
Oh, I guess Apple announced the iPhone. That's cool.

All in all, I'm more motivated and more energetic than I've been since who knows when. Being back to one short week of work, then rushing around Tokyo for 10 days, then coming home with Piroko in tow will have everything topsy-turvy. Happiness happens.

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