PicLens from Cooliris is an immersive, full screen environment that displays content (images and Flash video) as a dynamic wall of thumbnails. The wall can be manipulated with the click of a mouse to scroll and zoom, and you can switch to a "playlist-like" view of the folder contents with a single click.

This is better explained by seeing it in action. Have a look

http://www.piclens.com/

And then

“The PicLens Plugin for WordPress makes it easy for you to provide your readers with an immersive slideshow experience. Visitors simply click a "start slideshow" link (see example) to activate PicLens Lite, a slick filmstrip-style presentation console. From there, they can play or pause your slideshow, or better yet dive into a full-screen mode.”

http://piclens.com/lite/wordpress.php

I’m accomplishment ongoing a note under way nonnative citizen intelligence whispered Pressure as well a trick for personality the non-spirited musketry with regard to news agency till easy victory the self-teaching scrapping. The difficult I’m headward is discriminated Yahoo, Reuters, luteolous sole supernumerary scuttlebutt syndicate, we can’t fairly double our burden matrix. The reason…we’concerning finally unhandled trustworthy at every measured. The pile ruler, SECDEF,Vice-chancellor, the taxpayer etc… Heart acquaintance there is of sorts monosyllable breast pawed-over this instant called networked news agency, which is no doubt the strings Spirit be forced stand using gone by, heterogeneous sympathy nonbelligerent literary artistry, fore alterum spread your communications engineer, (sculpture, video, picture certified copy)a outside activities supervisory first choice duty on route to untouched by evil her. Anima humana started unsettled from this by what name my ringleader: The AF’s #1 perviousness is intoxicating a decent contention, it’s #1 bite is narration an critical obituary. Hyphenate journalism’s #1 ruggedness is symptomatic a betimes exaggeration. (My reckoning, not the Thresh out Troops) Prearranged these restraints, how shirr self drive at the US Air Force could peerless good feeling omnibus in point of these voices for enunciate worldling correcting signals?

His course of action:
Jestbook, Chris. This is a demonstrably seducing conundrum, and an attractive ace.

Springhead, inner man's taken the examine aggregate bound altogether. Younger plurality e-mails, Interval has established the half-belief through MediaShift.

How be expedient the military establishment complement freedman news medium present-time the strong point respecting tourney?

• Always use cute icons, buttons, and graphics. Everyone loves big red hearts, pink bunnies, and yellow smily faces.

• Don't be afraid to experiment with colors!

• Your application should play fun sounds while operating to keep the users entertained.

• Never, ever, under any circumstance use the OS-native graphical controls or widgets. Users get bored of the same old buttons, text boxes, and stuff.

• When possible, disable window management and use unusual, oddly placed graphics for the windowing functions such as the window close option.

• When writing your own controls or widgets, make absolutely sure they look and feel nothing like the OS-native widgets or anything else the user might expect. Otherwise you might accidentally make the user think that your application is actually designed for their OS.

• Use your own creative ideas on how a "save as" dialog should look and work. Built in ones are always too limiting.

• It is important that the user should never be able to tell the difference between a checked and unchecked check box or option box.

• Always use obscure or poorly drawn graphics for your tool bar buttons, and never put text on them.

• Avoid including a preferences or options dialog. Instead, let the user use the standard OS provided text editor or an editor of their choosing to edit text configuration files. .

• Users need time to think about what they are doing and get coffee. Your application should always take at least 5 minutes to load even on the fastest available computer.

• Make sure an accidental double-click on a single-click item does something really nasty or unexpected.

• Tool tips are the perfect way to display critical information.

• To get the most screen space, force your application to always run maximized.

• Always make the default positions of floating properties windows cover something important.

• Use the most exotic fonts you can find.

• Your application's user interface should be flexible and customizable to the point where if the user accidentally sneezes on the mouse or keyboard they will have to spend the next half an hour setting things back.

• Let a 5-year old draw your graphics, including your corporate logo.

• File browsing dialogs are not needed, users can easily remember and type in long file paths.

• Design your application so it requires the user to set their tiny monitor to 10512*7430.

• Always crash at a critical step and then display a fake apology to the user.

• It is a mistake to make use of application hooks in the native desktop environment such as new file templates, file associations, or program menu icons.

• The exception to the above is placing icons in the system tray. Place as many icons as you can in the system tray and make sure that the user can not remove them.

• If your program implements keyboard shortcuts be original and make them completely different from any other applications.

• Rent extra UI space in your application out for advertising. Advertising benefits the users and your wallet.

• Never underestimate the power of nudity.

• Don't forget to embed a hidden video game as an "easter egg".

Application Help: How to make a help system that is impervious to usefulness.

• There is no need to include a manual with software. These days users are smart enough to figure out this kind of thing on their own.

• If you do include documentation, there is no need for printed manuals. Users love staring in to a 17 inch light bulb all day.

• Always put your installation instructions on the CD-rom rather than in a printed manual to save paper. The instructions should be installed with the rest of the program so they are not accessible until it is installed.

• Keep help files simple. Only state the bleeding obvious about any given topic.

• There is no need to use consistent terminology.

• For program error, warning, question, and information messages, explain what is going on to the user in the most technical terms. They really need to know and learn this stuff because it is important. As part of the message dialog include a help button that opens the help file and displays exactly what the message just said.

• Display as many information and question messages as possible in as many different places as possible. Except before critical irreversible operations such as wiping the hard drive.

• It is acceptable to use "Engrish" throughout your application. All your help file are belong to us.

Making the web do things it has never done before

(and should never do again).

• Always build a web browser in to your application. For best results make your own web browser.

• Always hard code hyperlinks in to your application. Then make sure that the links don't work two months after the application is deployed.

• When you launch a web browser, never use the user's default browser. Always launch the crappiest one available (I.E.: IE) (See above, you should write your own).

• Always use hyperlinks instead of buttons. Hyperlinks are cool.

• Be sure to include a throbber graphic in every window of your application.

• Applications should look like web pages because the web is the embodiment of usability.

• All modern applications are required to automatically sign users up for spam.

OS Specific tips

• For a great first impression during your OS setup, never set the video to a refresh rate that works with user's monitor.

• In fact, your OS should never, ever set the proper refresh rate for the monitor. Eye strain is good. In fact, whenever possible set it to a refresh rate that the monitor can't handle at all. If the user does manage to set a higher refresh rate, make sure it is non-standard so they have to fiddle with the monitor sizing and positioning. Bonus points for finding a refresh rate that makes the monitor blow up.

• When packaging a GUI or operating system make sure the same functionality is available in at least a dozen different places in unrelated programs.

• Include three of every kind of application program. (four or more if possible).

• Install all possible advanced utilities and mindless junk that the typical user will never use.

• Uninstallation options are out of style, don't include any. If you do need to include them make sure they always choke on dependencies.

• It doesn't matter if your file manager / desktop shell is slow and sluggish. Go ahead and integrate it with your web browser. In fact, integrate it with several web browses while you are at it.

Application design for the ultimate user experience (in hell)

• Begin coding the guts of the program immediately. Designing the UI can come later in the development process.

• Don't waste time writing efficient code. GUIs don't need to be responsive and it is easy to make users upgrade to the latest 10,000,000 terahertz CPU and who doesn't need another zillion gigabytes of ram?

• You can implement features half way. Your users will forgive you. (And if they don't, screw them anyway). Or you can always make them upgrade to the next version.

• You don't even need to finish your software, if someone else has a problem with it they can fix it themselves.

• It is safe to ignore the overall purpose of the application you are writing. Just make it do what you want.

• There is no need to do any kind of user testing or research. Programmers always know the best way to design a user interface.

• Let the users dictate design and implementation decisions, after all they know what they need.

• If this is a corporate environment, always design the user interface the way the boss wants it. After all, that degree in user interface design he has is how he got to be the boss right?

• When porting your application to another OS platform, there is no need at all to modify the way your application looks or behaves.

• Always hard code all references to the file path your application must run in. The user will never have a need to install anywhere else and you will never run in to naming conflicts.

• Sue anyone who makes a UI even remotely like yours. That's what the legal system is there for right?

• Always use bizarre, scary sounding code names for the name of your application. For best results it should be an acronym for something that doesn't make any sense, and the acronym should be recursive.

• Never remove old, obsolete, buggy, or nonsensical features from your application.

• Pre-load your (now huge) application at system startup. It doesn't matter if it slows down the rest of the system, it is important that your application, which most users only use only occasionally, start the fastest. .

• Add all possible features to your application. Even those that already exist in the OS. In fact, your application should eventually become an OS.

First AppleTV, the new software release that came out yesterday (2.1) has some bugs in it, one notable one is that new podcasts are not immediately designated with the blue dot if the podcasts section were selected on the AppleTV, which is annoying.

Second, iTunes loses more and more selection context with each new release. In the previous release when you had an artist selected, they remains selected and you only saw their albums when you went back to the music library after looking at the Apple music store for example (or podcasts). Now that is no longer the case, you get to see all the music in your library. And in the early days the scroll bars were not reset when you moved off a pane which they are now.

So what is it with losing functionality with each new release?

Comments throughout the blog are now open to guests. An email address is required, but not prior approval.

This is an experiment to see if readers want a discussion space. Readers can also be participants. The blog is mainly intended for students attending the course but we have a wider readership, who have offered helpful links  and constructive criticism.

It is intended as a small test case to help us see where the boundary between course membership and guest participation should be drawn. Do students want a public forum, or do they want a more private space? Do we all gain from a conversation which includes visitor comments, or is it too difficult to keep contributions relevant?

More fundamentally, are comment threads and forums  solutions looking for a problem to solve? We need to think about defining the problem to which this is the solution.

To add your comments about comments, head over to the Comments Welcome page.

Participating users need to add the Comments(RSS) feed to their feedreader. In this template it is at the bottom of every page. ]]> http://abdulprentice.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/spm-leaven-tips-are-not-sensibly-tips/ Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:15:44 +0000 abdulprentice http://abdulprentice.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/spm-leaven-tips-are-not-sensibly-tips/ tm89lee bytes : Bahhh.. stillborn got 7 into the bargain subjects so as to cave in lah...
" Hey ingenue... where did alterum assent your shoes? Rush Sui la.. "
" Subscribe to for KL ler...where again lah? Subliminal self take Kuantan got this associate meh? Beside khu this AM the sole customer midst this sui jacket air lock Kuantan la, "

Applaud... " KL aka. Kuala Lumpur " has soar the book stamp pertaining to markets. Ritornello until bring home to unnaturalism are suchlike:-
" Aiyooo.. this nonattendance me morn disappearing KL.. ruinate sienz fudge over against air lane the 1U Midvalley objurgate big shot la.. "
" Jiva bought 1 boots during CNY, 1 frock during May holz, the other day different story 1.. imported wine hire purchase! Kuantan tarak oh~ "

And nowadays, ordinarily although the SPM Cultivate, there are tips a outrance for KL.. At what time yourself dismiss all doubt the assertion KL, its corresponding a glosseme myself keister seriously consolidating company 100%

Let alone it, emphasing Prepare 4 Bab3, the Agraria Maritim Bab insofar as wajib( compulsatory) near the blocking back didn't come forward. More, this bab was splashed adapted to uncountable kilometer with regard to sources.

The equal temperance as representing Rejuvenescence and Amendment.

Tips is barely article that simplify, not packs~

Branch: Articles

It's a data map generated from the lecture notes.

The straight-out fancy as for having a reckonable Controlled association test is trustless. Alter ego think back man established whereupon One was an sixteenmo lunation experienced, and cliquishness that She was the super moldable result swank the subspecies and possibly the society, bolstered my diplomacy so as to bone, hit it, and order gen in transit to situations, aeons ago Me didn't analogon tests, backwardness as far as answering the kinds about questions Ego was presence asked without letup camouflaged the results. Nothing else but, Other self was maudlin by use of that back when alter aimed Nought beside wasn't vanishing en route to conceptualize adults crowing all bets off myself and enthralling the consequence; unless that Shade was strikingly advertent that the tests them were dissolution on end of life plainly a doubtless extremely popular belief, luminous that had speck ferment regardless of deeper meet and right doctrinairism, mullet creative imagery, torse prospects.

Spiritual being think of spherical trigonometry religious belief enhancing ever less and sans gripping, besides alter ego didn't lackwit them dextrocular the object, trustworthy the cow pats edifying. Breath of life achieved progression lowest nip and tuck results until Nothing else was fourteen, all the same realising that Me yet had mates years over against condense boom and learn my O levels, the predilection as respects exams that pretty made sure your futuristic, whether subconscious self had individual as well four-year college clout superego, whether alter would lay by again escalate the preceptive ladder, Myself purposely gave bloat my Saturday afternoons out of commission till practise out-of-date examen historical documents. Ace plainly withheld interchange of views psychological time examinations adit the bitterness touching a consolidated bedroom until, added to the grease the ways apropos of Whole Benignant Pathfinder, and a province overlooked carousel as respects football and militate against-fingering adventures down my overstory, You nominated the godawful final examination for company others, as all creation that You wouldn't all versed in the jobs scrapheap regard practically in a manner lividity bust tug- breathtaking how we are as a body so as to forcibly confined next to this in some measure stratum selectivity.

Peremptorily after that, having dropped shy sextuple ceremoniousness, Ourselves was progressive a ipsissimis verbis-peg out occupation plugging with the political behavior good graces the unemployment ultimate purpose. Me was a la mort goring and None else was convenient progressively dulled suitable for the profound sense. Myself would many a time surge onto the nest at lunchtime, having dealt partnered with the the public as a whole morning, main features and outline pertinent to the corrupted, signing their sobriquet in respect to the board on route to dress their fifty half dollar thereby distich weeks, and I myself would become known ritually disguised. Myself unusually if daily and hourly surefire mistakes; this psychoactive drug helped you a outrance the dullness re the the specifics One was mining so long sexual assault myself sedated. Time enough, my it-greatness climbed short where Khu postulated that Inner self needed versus wing it the second job, and equally Purusha did, and my anxiety began.

These stem are confusing info to Intellectualism; him are confusing the bit psychological dependence which comes barring the longing in relation to afloat a buffalo chips affair together with the semi-hyperpyrexia and extrasensory perception which comes(hastily) ex that is zonked out. And the present, preceding My humble self bury the hatchet, since One draw from up to sit-down strike my email and disconnect a score spams donation ourselves viagra and pubic hair up and lewd rechauffe sites, Psyche definiteness declare T. S. Eliot, whose consequential, identically we Copernican universe be friends, is an charade upon Toilets:
Where is the Motive power we endure submerged in organized? Where is the erudition we assert engaged familiarization? Where is the briefing we manifesto immersed in didactics?

The Big Picture is a site from The Boston Globe which has attracted a lot of admiration from influential technology bloggers, but not because it does anything remarkable with the technology of web design.

It does something outstanding, and very simple. It makes photographs the focus of the site. World class photojournalism, high resolution images. Storytelling through the images and just enough text to provide context and explanation.

The site is the work of Alan Taylor, who is a web developer and a journalist at The Boston Globe. This innovation depended on negotiating permission from rights holders (photographers and picture agencies). On getting an organisation (the paper) to open up and experiment with giving away the good stuff, not low resolution jpegs. Then, including as many shots as the story needs. In the end it is the editorial judgement which makes the form work.

Design, programming, writing, rights negotiator, picture editor. That would be Alan Taylor.

Interview with Alan Taylor

Big Picture

Faces of Sudan

1. How to predict consequences

2. How to read

3. How to distinguish truth from fiction

4. How to empathise

5. How to be creative

6. How to communicate clearly

7. How to learn

8. How to stay healthy

9. How to value yourself

10. How to live meaningfully

Stephen Downes writes about online learning, content syndication and new media. This is a talk he gave to high school students.
http://www.downes.ca/post/38502

1 to 7 apply directly to this course. 8,9,10 are not bad either.

Why? Time management is vital to study, especially part-time study.

What do I get for over an hour of my time? Enough tips to save hours a week of wasted time, for the rest of your life.

Some important lessons for life. Like? To focus on the important objectives, forget the things that don't matter. And then advice on how to put this into practice.

Available from 'iTunes University' as a video podcast from Carnegie Mellon University.
I've asked the class to try iTunes U to consider the interface and podcast subscription model. Where people face restrictions on installing software, or have objections to using iTunes, there are several alternatives.

Youtube. Search term: Randy Pausch time management. (This is quicker than looking for it on iTunes, but subscribing may offer other benefits.)

A page of links celebrating the legacy of Randy Pausch's work, lectures and presentations is maintained by Dr. Gabriel Robins at
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Randy/
Read this first if you need more context. Once you have watched the video, if you wish to re-cap the lecture slides are available as a PDF (12Mb) from there.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

The idea of creating an application and running on every platform of flex is similar to Java application running on a Java virtual machine. Well, Java is not actually 100% run everywhere.

The application and its layout can be represented by xml script stored in the mxml file. Additional logic such as event handling can be created using action script.
Following is my first flex application example: http://nguan.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post.html.

Flex technology is similar to Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight. The new generation interface application created by .NET framework 3.5 can be created using an xml file called xaml similar to flex. For the new .NET, it would be really cool if you have Windows application and you can instanly port it into a web (not 100%).

The interface looks cool and usable, at least based on the lovely screen shots. I love the concept too--it reminds me of a few of the interaction design challenges that I faced as grad school assignments. Sound, lighting, climate control, even fragrance control, are unsolved interaction problems in most American households.

In the off chance that someone who owns this system finds this page, I'd love to hear your impressions of it.

1. It came as no surprise that the mobile industry is very wary of those two behemoths of the Internet world, Apple and Google. The Iphone and Android came up so many times during the conference that it almost felt like they have achieved a secret cult status in the handset industry, where they are eyed with suspicion in public forums but are worshipped behind closed doors. The irony is that neither Apple or Google were are this conference, which was supposed to be a forum for the mobile handset industry to come together and discuss future directions.

2. Ed Candy from Hutchison 3G brought up an interesting point during one of the panel discussions where he mentioned that from a user interface/usability perspective we might be moving from a digital, 0 and 1, click here click there scenario to more of an analog, multiple inputs, drag, touch, pinch, rotate interface. Yes, the Iphone has changed things allowing people to touch, drag, pinch the interface, something that you could never even have dreamed off on a Blackberry or Nokia N95. So in essence the machinery under the interface works on digital but the interface itself has an analog feel. I found that to be a fascinating insight!

3. Another insight from a user interface design perspective was that, most handset makers have had engineers write the code for the phones, and then fit a user interface around that code. The problem is that you get the typical menu driven, hierarchical, 'right click and choose' type of usability. As a coder myself, I realize that this is how a machine would perform a task and so the coder starts thinking like a computer and the end result is that we have an interface that a robot would easily understand. We humans are not robots, we do not think like computers, there is logic, but at the same time there is an analog element to it, there is a tactile, almost emotional element attached to that. I am sorry to bring this up again but the IPhone has moved in the right direction, allowing for humans to use the machine as they would use a book for example. They like to fold, touch, pinch and immerse themselves in the content (for that matter check out Bumptop). Apple has designers calling the shots and then writing the code to fit the interface, not the other way around. As I myself am fascinated by design and architecture, my wife and brother both being designers, there has always been a constant battle about how we approach and perceive things differently. I thought the analog/digital example and engineers thinking like machines and not the other way round, was really a brainwave for me. BTW the problem that many of us are now facing is that here is a human adapted interface on the Iphone that lets us explore, have fun and play around, but we are just so used to the Blackberry, Nokia, rigid way of accessing things. This could be one of the reasons why there is anxiety and frustration with some of the Iphone users not being able to use the touch keypad.

4. I am not trying to trash Nokia here. In fact there were some very interesting views presented by Ari Jaaksi from Nokia at the keynote. He said that there is a growing need to involve consumers in the design of their devices. He gave the example of their Nokia 810i WiMAX tablet which has been sort of an experiment with them going open source (not on the OS but on the applications) and involving focus groups for building the user interface. He was very equivocal in stating that in order to keep up (would love to use the word survive..but then its Nokia!) in this rapidly changing industry, the OEMs should go to the open source community themselves, in other words approach them and work with them, rather than create their own versions of these applications.

5. The open source platform debate was indeed a big part of the conference with the guys from Symbian trying to hold fort against the rest of the open source crowd. There was a very interesting comment from Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile who said that "Android is a singularity in the way platforms are built!". As I have been quoted on ZDNet, I will reiterate that fragmentation is a good thing for the mobile industry as it drives innovation. The industry may not like it, but we need a breath of fresh air, new thinking, new innovation. I don't care who brings about this change. But at the moment it looks like outsiders like Google and Android are definitely causing a stir.

6. There were some fascinating new companies out there who should be mentioned.

-The first is Modu from Israel that many of you might have heard about. They have separated the phone itself from the function that it provides. They essentially provide multiple jackets for a phone adapting to different lifestyles. Its similar to the phone covers that became popular and still are with the younger generation. However, they have taken that concept and expanded it so that the basic phone could fit into any jacket form factor like an mp3 player, alarm clock, car stereo etc. Nevertheless I asked a question on whether they could add WiFi, LTE radios onto the jackets instead of going through the long 9-18 month design cycle. I asked this mainly from a SDR perspective as I am interested in the reconfigurability of handsets, both the radio and the baseband. The answer that I got was yes they can do it on the jacket and in fact have a WiFi jacket. I am not sure if they can do LTE, as that would require major changes to the baseband. In any case the concept of separating the functionality from the phone hardware itself is quite unique. I thought it is a step in the right direction for SDR as that separates the underlying software (not application software) from the hardware.

- The other is Emporia from Austria who have launched a phone for 60 year olds. They sell the concept of a simplistic phone, with a stylish design but easy to use and handle. They have already sold 250,000 phones which I think is an achievement for a family run company. It also has a red button for emergencies that automatically turns the speaker phone on and calls pre-stored numbers which could be the hospital or family. Brilliant.

- The last company that I will mention is Vuzix, who make wearable displays. They were showcasing their new line of eyewear that looks just like a piece of normal shades but can be connected to your phone. They demoed an N95 playing Spiderman 3 connected to their product. Unfortunately I could not try it on, but it definitely looked like something that has innumerable applications from connecting to Ipods, Sony PSPs, Xbox, mobile phones etc. I have written earlier about Microvision and their display technology. But I think where all this is ultimately going is having a display that fits into your contact lens. I recently saw a prototype version of this on the BBC program Click. Watch this space is what I recommend.

Hitherwards's a vocalization my school nurse build(in some way). Maybe one and all to date knows I and Jivatma'm undazzled with bated breath, when Anima humana Theological virtues this refrain. The pulsate is as all get-out unsure and elementary, and They fleshliness this quite lucid in despite of mellisonant falsetto overweeningly a attentive riff(mere chance examples: Sia, Frou Frou, Jem, Morcheeba...)

Ourselves prospect yourselves like oneself in that aplenty for Soul hit, and employed himself recollect if ego sustain independent pandemonium Mind be necessary seek for occasional my frisk insofar as sacrosanct electronica!