Sunday, March 28, 2004

The Passivator

A bookmarklet that highlights adverbs and writing that could be in the passive voice. Given my predilection for weakly worded sentences this could be quite helpful. It has a number of caveats, but they could actually be useful as well. This bookmarklet is not compatible with Internet Explorer, but that's no big loss. (via Simon Wilson)

Saturday, March 27, 2004

NakedText.com

unless they're getting a bunch of money for the special requests doesn't look like these are business majors. It must be costing them more than $5-7 a shot when you factor in overhead, the time it takes to run the website, and how long it takes to write on each other, take a picture, wash up and dry for the next picture, and process the pictures. But if their parents paid for the camera and computers and, being students, they've got free time anyway, it's a really cool concept and should be taken advantage of while it's still cheap.

Opera, IBM voice

Just the other day I suggested that Cybil upgrade her grandfather's browser to Opera, even though I rarely use it or even test for it, because he's running at 800x600 on a large monitor and can't see it well enough to read. Opera is the only browser I know of with screen zoom, not just text zoom, and now on top of that it's getting a built in text reader. Combine the accessibility support with the moves it's making on the mobile browsing market I'm no longer so supprised at the rumor I heard that they are going public. Only concern now is that they may be like a 3rd party candidate in a two party system. I'll have to think about it, is promoting Opera like throwing your vote away to Nadar? Might it be idiologically the best option, but wind up being just like you'd voted for bush/gates. Or is promoting absolutely anybody other than MS the best thing to do?

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Combining BookCrossing and Geocaching

Two things that are on my "would like to do someday" list combined together, although I'd rather use a topo and maybe an altimeter instead of a GPS, seems like cheating somehow, though I guess they are finicky enough to be a challenge. Also of note to the web designers who read this, how cool is this link shortening technique? http://webpages.charter.net/---/caches.html. much sexier than using CSS overflow: hidden;

100 MOVIES THAT DESERVE MORE LOVE

Gotta pull this up next time we're on Netflix.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Design by Fire: The Great Photoshop CS Giveaway

Anyone who knows the answer to even one of these questions already has Photoshop CS and probably knows the engineers personally. I'm intrigued to hear the answers, but I think the contest is too much of an insider thing and misses the benefit to the design community that it could have had.

I have been trying not to complain about things unless I have a positive suggestion as an alternative. Here's my idea: if the questions were more oriented towards design trivia or art history they might be better for the aspiring designer who hasn't been able to afford Photoshop, let alone the latest version.

The challenge in creating the quiz would then have been to find knowledge that isn't readily available via Google. The insider knowledge approach steps around that problem of the ready availability of information, but doesn't accomplish the greater good that having a people whose lives could really be changed by owning a copy of Photoshop researching information that whether they win or not would increase the knowledge of design within the web design community. And I'm not being bitter because I don't stand a chance, PS7 is serving me fine.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Recalling Forgotten Passages

I found it! My favorite passage from Shakespeare's Richard II. Actually, one of my favorite passages period, from anything.

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill'd her husband and his father:
To take her in her heart's extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I nothing to back my suit at all,
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
HA!

[I.ii.232-43]

I used to have a ton of poems and passages memorized: some of the "dark lady" sonnets, Edgar Allen Poe's The Bells, Gollums riddles from The Hobbit, and more stuff I don't even remember anymore, all good for hanging out around campfires, which if you know anything about my high school years I did more often than not. But now I don't even remember what it was I used to know, let alone the words themselves. Except maybe for this one, it stuck for some reason. Digging through some old stuff I came across a little plastic envelope with a bunch of scraps of paper in it. It was a collection of the stuff I was trying to learn, or had just learned, including the passage above. So, while I may never find the e.e. cummings style parody of the "summer rose" sonnet, at least I have this, which really is my favorite. It's like a rape fantasy played out in the mainstream entertainment of it's day. Fuck the FCC.

Update: I found the notebook with my complete collection and have started a podcast, Spoken by Firelight. To listen to a reading of this passage go to Was ever woman? Act 1, Scene II of Richard III

The Broadmoor Online Reservations in oneScreen(TM)

Polar opposite of inductive user interface. Wish it weren't in flash, or they'd at least picked crisper fonts. (via a Jeffrey Veen presentation)

Monday, March 22, 2004

Xina Design

Sunday afternoon I took a few hours to design a default template for Xina, a CMS+ system that I have periodically done interface work on over the last several years. Don't bother looking under the hood at the source, it's a mongrel of a transitional layout, complete with brute force old dhtml navigation whose only saving grace is that it even has a noscript version.

The whole premise was actually kind of challenging. Build an un-branded site using only HTML text for logos, taglines, etc. It had to be an understated simple design, with no colors or shapes giving it away as specifically either corporate, personal, or not-for-profit. As you can see from my last couple designs (and this site), subtle and understated isn't something that I've done a lot of recently.

Usually I approach a design with a layout or theme in mind, sketched in a notebook or at least in my head. For this design I went at it more organically. I pulled all the text into photoshop, then just started pushing stuff around, filling backgrounds with colors and gradients I picked using Pixy's Color Scheme. I chose two different harmonious schemes that worked well together, took them into photoshop and muted them. At one point while filling in backgrounds I went a little too far with the gradients. Realizing that I'd hit the point of having over worked the design I just backed up a couple steps in history and saw that it was done. Simple as that.

I pulled the content for the mockup from the XinaSoft.org site and the Xina demo. Michelle, the inventor and primary developer of Xina, has decided that she like the design enough to make it the new template for both of those sites. And one of her co-workers saw the design and is going to contact me next time they need design work done.

I never got around to planning my future, but things seem to be falling into place. I'm playing with requirements at work, drawing in my spare time, and doing design work both freelance and at my day job.

"Who cares what you think?"

This one's been circulating for 3 years now I guess. Just leaves me hoping that we get some real debates this election that are engaging enough to not be fended off with canned responses written by mr. cunthair's speech writers.

Sunday, March 21, 2004

DVD Collection

Having gotten the new battery from my warranty I was free to roam about the house with the laptop. The ever so exciting result of this was I pulled out all our DVDs, organized them, and typed them all into a DVD Collection archive page. If anyone (that I see on at least a weekly basis) wants to borrow anything you are welcome.

Right Watch

This little site with a CSS layout, my first, must have gone live at some point. It's hopefully not highly publicized as there are numerous typos in the copy and empty pages. The footer is jammed down below the fold (always below the fold, the nav has a height of 100%), and I'm not sure how I ever got it to pass bobby with a nav made up of a bunch of anchors one after another. Poking around on our server I see that the .css file was last modified on 10/20/2002, so I have a date for when I first started dabbling in CSS for layout. A year and a half. I was intentionally late to the game those days since my boss at the time used NS4 on her mac.

Saturday, March 20, 2004

The Unofficial Nohands Gallery!

I've been running a lot of google image searches lately to find animals to draw. This last search just turned up a picture that I recognized from a recent ala article. I followed it to the site it came from (which had moved) and found this whole phenominon of photoshop jobs using this kitten. Other end of the spectrum from the last photoshop jobs (pun not intended) link I pointed out.

Wizard's Duel - Elemental Symbols Board

Took some time out from drawing cards to enhance the game board with the elemental symbols that appear in the lower right of the cards. Take a look at this picture of the center tier to see how different elements co-exist on various spaces. Drawing the elements directly onto each space removes any ambiguity about what spaces a player may move onto based on the animal they are currently playing. It greatly simplifies writing the rules, and allows for players to focus on playing the game, not figuring out what moves are legal.

Speaking of which, it's getting about time to start putting more energy into writing the rules than drawing the cards. I think I'll finish the deck sans-illustrations and pencil in the names of the animals so I can change them if I find a better photo of a similar animal. Need to fill in that empty lower left corner with animals speeds translated into board scale and split into sprint and endurance. It's not going to be an exact science by any means. The numbers will have to vary enough to discourage stalling behavior. Only playtesting will tell whether I'm on the right track, so it's time to move production along at faster than my drawing pace.

Videos (and websites) for Cats

Karen, my dad's girlfriend, has these birdwatching videos that her cats love. I don't remember if they have a sound track though.

Friday, March 19, 2004

Photoshoped Cumshots

Warning! Read the title before you click on the link. Don't come all whining to me that I made you look at something gross. So Jennifer Garner's not at all happy with her situation, but Liv Tyler is just slighty melencholy. But I bet when the camera's away she's a demon in the sack. And for the doves' X-Files collection, Gillian Anderson.

Application Archetypes

For example, "Longhorn" enables Web sites to deliver smart clients that offer a degree of interactivity beyond what is normally possible in Web pages today.

Now I'm getting really concerned that MS is moving down the road of closing off its part of the internet, moving away from the standards of the web and encouraging proprietary applications by providing simple/stupid tools with which to build e-commerce applications that are specific to the OS, further leveraging their monopoly.

The solution is two-fold. Expand the market share of alternative browsers with a positive benifits oriented marketing campaign (the negative aspects of IE go without saying). The second part is to provide more resources for developers struggling with the web standards learning curve, and lead by example by not doing what fucking LockerGnome did and taking a step backwards towards crap front-end development practices.

The Aesthetics of Revelation

I like the way this guy thinks. Quality metaphors. Now I want to come up with better examples. Perhaps a dashboard on the gateway page of an app works. Show useful summary data up front, tantalize us with an overview of the raw data beneath. Doesn't get much geekier than that.

Design Trends

Trends in popular design should be collections of things that we should not be doing. Or things we look at and say, "ok, I see what they're doing, how can I do it better, what's the next step in the evolution of the trend, or how can I take what's good about what they've done and integrate it into my own personal style."

Take the CSS Zen Garden Oceans Apart. Now this is gorgeous design, don't get me wrong. It is the culmination of a design trend that began back with Golden Mean, combined with the now trendy dropshadow borders. But it has been some time since Douglas Bowman came out with his golden design and it's time for the next new innovation. And don't tell me it's post modern eclectic, that is nothing new by definition.

There are some days when I wish I was still working with Claudia Palmira. She was always one step ahead of the mob. She would do something, and then a few months later you'd see it in a major national advertising campaign. Too bad she alienated everyone she worked with in the Northampton/Amherst area and crawled back to her parents in Manhattan.

Slightly related note, just read a Blog Survey on Expectations of Privacy and Accountability (via SuperfluousBanter). I guess I am of the do not give a flying fuck philosophy, using full names and saying whatever I want by default, only censoring when it comes to work related stuff so as not to get fired.

Getting back to my subject, it's time for a-symmetry, raggedness, unique colors, and texture. I'll point out good examples as I find them. And when Mister Jon finally gets his site up he will enlighten us with a more intelligent and focused discussion of design trends.

<<< Guido Sterkendries >>>

wildlife photography

Yetisport 3 - Penguin Throw

because abusing foolish animals is funny

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Dave Barry's Blog

He's sindicated right, not just an east coast humor columnist? While this is purely a weblog deal, it does have a link to his column as well.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Project Gutenburg Redesign Finalists

Surprised that people voted for the Macromedia site look alike, doesn't really have anything unique going for it. Bright Corner is the one that's obviously going to win, being the most usable and nicely designed as well, and Minz Meyer is an awesome artist (zen garden 037), so it's no surprise he makes the finals, but the fact that it's a completely impractical design will see it lose in the end. Somebody suggested to move the search up a bit, then it might be better. It is an intriguing and unique design with potential for greatness given some UI tweaking.

Monday, March 15, 2004

OK/Cancel

Penny Arcade cameo.

group hug // anonymous online confessions

Ok, so everyone's probably seen this already since it won a SXSW award, but that's why I made this link log, so I could echo "have you seen this one yet" a month late when nobody cares. But now that I've echoed I can't confess anything that somebody might pin on me until some time has past. So this post is even less than worthless. So how about that OK/Cancel comic strip, pretty funny stuff, eh?

"Five hundred dead soldiers support Bush-Cheney '04."

"But not if you're gay!"
"One Dick, One Bush as God Intended"
"Don't Settle for the Lesser of Two Evils"
"I Wasn't Using Those Rights Anyway"
"Don't Switch Horses Mid Apocalypse"
"Don't switch gangs mid bang."

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Best Buy Laptop Warranties Blow

"This Plan does not cover repairs caused by accidental or intentional physical damage... "

Let's think about that statement from my extended 3 year service plan on my Sony Vaio purchased from Best Buy. [P]hysical damage, what other kind of damage can be done to a laptop? Emotional damage? Not that I wouldn't be surprised given what I subject this machine to. So good, we know that Best Buy will pay for a psychologist for my laptop, but not for anything that's broken. And what's with the accidental or intentional part? How could damage possibly not be either one of those? You either meant to break it or you didn't. Maybe if I was temporarily insane and broke it, it wouldn't be an accident but I didn't mean to either, then they would cover it. So we're back to the therapy again. Good to know that a Best Buy warranty will pay for a shrink, but they will not repair anything that's broken, except if some internal part seized up spontaneously, they might think about fixing it.

So yeah, Best Buy won't fix the latch on my monitor, or the little kick-stand foot thing on the bottom. But to their credit they will replace the battery, but only because the warranty specifically states that it will cover that, though not anything else as far as I can tell.

And they wouldn't help the poor lady in line next to me who had popped her N key off. She hadn't even lost the little horseshoes, they could've just popped it back on. I could have too (I've switched my whole keyboard to DVORAK) but it really wasn't my place to barge in, and I didn't want to break it in front of everyone, they're delicate little pieces.

Moral of the story: buy a Dell. The only reason I purchased from Best Buy was for the warranty because Sony only offered a 30 day guarantee, which is a total joke. I went with the Sony because I'm an interface guy, and Sony has the best monitors, keyboard layout and touchpad feel. But this total lack of customer care is the price that I pay. If you want the piece of mind that somebody will actually fix your machine then buy a Dell, and stear clear of Best Buy's fake $220 warranty, because that's too much to pay for a 3 year battery replacement plan unless you're getting a new one every year (which I probably should have, mine's been dead for a couple years).

Avalanche Company: The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army

this one's for josher. what was your count before they sent you home?

It's Richard Brautigan's birthday - poetry.about.com

And for a taste of Brautigan himself, Nils T. Devine claims to have posted "the largest collection of Richard Brautigan poetry on the Web" -- at least until Brautigan's estate asks that the texts be taken down.

And it's true.

Saturday, March 13, 2004

OkCupid - The False Messiah

And I have NO matches, not in the greater Los Angeles area, not even in the world. Cybil got The Nymph, who I am supposed to pursue. The Nymph in turn is supposed to ALWAYS AVOID The False Messiah. Jen, Cybil's best friend from Hampshire from before we dated (who I used to have a crush on) got Peach, polar opposite of Nymph, but coincidentally are supposed to DREAD The False Messiah.

Clever quize actually, feeds you different questions based on previous answers. They slip registration information in with the quize so when you're done you're registered. When you log in you can imrove your matches (as if I had any) by answering more questions. There's a curve rating match accuracy that you initially move very quickly up to the 70% range quickly, but the curve starts leveling off so each question only gets you another 1%. The questions themselves are good. You answer it for yourself, then for your potiential match, and rate how important the answer would be. It's fun when it points out double standards in your beleifs. Like, I beleive X, but I would want her to believe Y.

There are any number of great and amusing questions, but the best one is this: "Are you ok with a potential match having a STD?" The only answer is click here, here being a link to match.com.

Friday, March 12, 2004

Breakthrough Ideas - Wizard's Duel

I had two new ideas for the game this morning. Both of them are really exciting in that they are the reality equivalent of the fantasy action being played.

For the combat system I had been thinking of going with coin tosses, but coin tosses aren't that hard to control the outcome, and after reading an article about how they aren't as random as one might think I've been trying to come up with an alternative. Here it is.

When the attacker moves his piece onto the defender's spot the defender takes his playing piece off the board and behind his back. The piece is secretly hidden in one hand. Both hands are then presented as fists. The attacker picks a hand, and if it's the one with the piece the attack succeeds. The metaphor is perfect, the defender hides and if the attacker finds him he gets nabbed.

An alternative more skill based version would be to hide the piece under one of three cups. The defender mixes them up while the attacker tries to follow. The attacker then tries to pick the right cup. The odds become 1 in 3 if the defender is sufficiently skilled with the cups. It does add an element of physical dexterity to the game, but haven't you always wanted to learn this carnival trick?

The other idea has to do with cheating. I have been planning on having an advanced play option where you can pull from an animal set that is "against the rules", imaginary creatures like dragons and such. They wouldn't be available until later in the game and were going to be a separate stack of cards. My idea is that these cards will be obviously marked on the back, black dots in corners or black borders. The stack of "cheat cards" are placed on the bottom of the main deck. Then, when it comes time that you could cheat you deal to yourself off the bottom of the deck.

Project Gutenberg Redesign

So I guess you get 3 votes, here they are:
  1. Bright Corner - this one's all about usability, but subtle as well. What useit.com should be if Neilson would get his head out of his ass and learn a thing or two about information design.
  2. Geert De Deckere - subtle color and texture, but usable as well. If Bright Corner's wasn't just so damn usable this would be my first choice.
  3. Minz Meyer - mostly just enjoy the design of this one. I like it when a designer chooses a color theme and then uses multiple shades of the colors within that theme.
With honorable mention going to:
  1. Mathieu Sylvain - 'cause I'm a sucker for a theme, even if it is rough around the edges.

My first choice puts usability first, but does not fail to create a pleasing esthetic. Actually, the design fits the purpose of the site more closely than any of the others. My second choice strikes a balance between design and usability. My third choice I just like the design, the IA isn't any good. There is little of value and nothing of function within the top 400 pixels.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Flashback

This is one for Mr. Jon, who I believe has been seeking a versioning system for personal use.

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Matchstick Rockets

Quality fun! Small enough scale to play with in current cramped urban living conditions, but fun with fire. Might just have to use strick anywhere matches though *grin*. via inflight correction.

Graphic of the Day: Road and exit numbering

Edward Tufte starts off a discussion of road numbering systems. I'm so glad California is finally going to add exit numbers. Let's hope they use the intelligent system, relating the numbers to the distance between them, rather than just making them sequential. Right now, in So. Cal at least, the street signs are well designed (large and over the road), but named like shit, in that they have no numbers and most of the street names are in fucking Mexican (pardon my canadian french). BTW, I'll add cartographer to the list along with architect of fields I might have pursued if it weren't for the web.

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook

Curious how much will be redundant if you've been following SimpleQuiz. Will probably wait until Amazon let's me look inside, or I see it in the store. Might be worth purchasing just to support writing in the web standards field.

Saturday, March 06, 2004

Week of Wizard's Duel Cards

Cards on Board I've been drawing animals for about week now. I was shooting for three a day, but it's been more like two. The land mammals are the most challenging. I don't know if it's the blending of shades of brown — I have four and none of them ever seem to go together right — or that since I live with two highly photogenic furry beasts my standards are higher. I've always enjoyed drawing birds, and it's much easier to find photos of them it action. The sea animals have simpler texture and colors that make them easier to draw, but can be hard to find in action. That is the key for me, finding a photograph of an animal in motion, like you've just caught a glimpse of it as it moves in or out of the frame.

I've almost filled in my animal lists. I need some more fast little guys. Have to add links to the photos I'm using so that I can tell which ones I still need to look for.

Ghost Town

Chernobyl photo journal. The haunting silent struck me the most. Can you imagine LA without noise? link via Simon Wilson.

Friday, March 05, 2004

Hand Drawn Maps

Just in case your wanderlust wasn't geared up already. link via kottle.

Planning your future by Erin Malone

I used to follow Erin's blog, Design Writings. It was nice to stumble accross an article by her at boxes and arrows. Here's a reminder to myself to answer these questions. I've been moving towards a few career goals, but articulating them in writing will help me to focus. These kind of things are hard these days when you never know if you'll be working two months from now, or who you may be working for, so the goals themselves need to be independant of current employer, even if the initial steps involve them. I think it's doable.

Thursday, March 04, 2004

Wildlife Action Shots

The best drawings I've done so far for the Wizard's Duel cards have been the ones with a lot of dynamic motion. These photos are all of animals in action, with pathetic right-click protection that Firefox simply ignores.

Where / What Vision Systems and Visual Design

An excellent way to point out to clients why their animated gif idea sucks.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Wizard's Duel Animals

Here are tables of the animals that I have drawn and plan to draw for the Wizard's Duel game. It has a blatant lack of any sort of key or legend, and since I lack a comments system you'll have to email me (ndevine@rakehell.com) or catch me on AIM (DivineNTD) to suggest animals to add to the list.

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Animal pictures Archives

Just hit a jackpot of animal pictures. Not that google image search hasn't been yeilding great results, it's just nice to be able to be able to browse. This is for my game Wizard's Duel, despite what some "furry" obsessed co-workers may think (Kelly).