Very pretty and pleasing to look at, but why can’t it show me today’s date entirely? Aggressive styling becomes a low-grade irritation when routine information is obfuscated, even where the full message is easy to guess.
(Update: Luke Wroblewski considers this in more detail, via Daring Fireball)
The iPhone’s touch screen works by conducting a small electronic charge through your fingertip; most gloves that are effective insulators from the cold are also pretty good at electrical isolation, so you have to take your glove off and your hand gets cold.
South Koreans have solved the cold-weather iPhone problem: Buy a particular brand of mini sausage that’s approximately the same shape and conductivity of a human finger.
Clusterflock has a concise summary of the iPhone sausage finger. The Google-translated article leaves us with this thought: “Maekseubong tagitcheung and this just fits the iPhone user base, while the poisonous celebrity, Max is on the stick.”
While they’re at it, why not use “fudge”, “darn”, and “shucks” instead of replacing the offending words with hash symbols?
I’m filing this under “ZDNet Imitates The Onion”.
I wish security vulnerabilities were the only reason why people should stop using Internet Explorer 6. Web developers have been campaigning steadily and conducting user outreach for many years to instigate upgrades. IE 6 support inflates web development budgets (because of the added work necessary to support an outlier platform), results in websites that aren’t as good and useful as they could be (because of client demands for full feature parity across all supported browsers), and a host of entrenched attitudes regarding web design that should have been shaken loose six or eight years ago. Unfortunately, as a web developer working on contracts I rarely have the option of arbitrarily cutting off IE 6 users, and currently most IE 6 users are themselves unable to upgrade.
This evening I wondered whether the four-conductor iPhone headsets (headphone plus microphone) could be used as conventional headphones on my computer, nevermind the mic. As it turns out, they not only work on Apple’s laptops, the mic does as well, as does the play/pause clicker. Now you can use Skype without taking off your earphones. (They’re also compatible with almost all of Apple’s iPods.)
Apple’s own documentation is sparse bordering on nonexistent. Product descriptions for their iPhone headsets only mention iPods. The most Apple has written about this is on page 25 of a PDF of the MacBook Pro user’s guide: “Audio out port: Connect external speakers, headphones (including iPhone), or digital audio equipment.“
If you haven’t got a compatible laptop, you can make an adaptor that splits into Mic In and Stereo Out plugs, or buy one.
The caption notes: “Peggy Bacon of Bondi, one of a troupe of girls who did pyramid stands on the beach, does a backflip for the photographer.” For whatever reason, this fails to dissipate the sense of strangeness in the picture.
What a wonderful photo.
An interesting graphic showing you how much viewport area (where the web content is, between the scrollbars, toolbars, and so on) web users see. Made useful because you can load your own websites in for comparison.
It’s worth remembering there is no page fold because every web browser is capable of scrolling and every web user knows how to scroll. Google has provided a guide for where to put the most important information and action elements on the page, not a guide for how short and narrow to make your web pages.
Aside from the geek-awesome alternate universe Atari 2600 game packages, I’m just plain grooving on the site’s design. Usually page designs with multiple motifs look like bad ideas executed badly but this is wonderful in all kinds of ways. (edit: Use the Safari or Chrome web browser for added grooviness.)
I spent some holiday down time browsing gadget websites and enjoying the para-poetics; “Fruit forks on tree”, “Flower style alloy white fashion handbag table purse hanger hook“, “Bloating water crystal soil“. It’s slightly tempting to offer a prize for the best short free verse that incorporates these or similar product names, although probably mean to offer the products used by name as the prizes.